Life After Death
by AelysAlthea
Summary: Five years after the war, and the world had settled. The survivors were healing. The Wizarding world was healing from the disaster of Voldemort, and they were learning to forget. Or most of them were. Harry was one of those few who couldn't. How could he, when the moment of his death, a death he'd turned away from, hung over his shoulder and breathed down his neck with silent words
1. Chapter 1 - Steps To Nowhere

**Summary:** Five years after the war, and the world had settled. The survivors were healing. The Wizarding world was healing from the disaster of Voldemort, and they were learning to forget.  
Or most of them were. Harry was one of those few who couldn't. How could he, when the moment of his death, a death he'd turned away from, hung over his shoulder and breathed down his neck with silent words and secret promises?  
Harry had learnt in those five years that the war was far from over for him. Death might have been avoided, but it would always leave its mark. The duties entailed by Harry's death, he never could have anticipated.

 **Rating:** M

 **Tags:** Harry Potter & Draco Malfoy; Post-Canon; Not Epilogue Compliant; Death; Attempted Suicide; Mental Illness; Depression; PTSD; Loneliness; Recovery; Mutual Support; Friendship; Platonic or Romantic, it's up to you; Hermione is a literal godsend

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WARNING: this story contains strong themes and a heavy emphasis upon death, mental illness, and suicide. While Major Character Death isn't a part of this, I would really like to stress that some elements may be triggering to some people. Please read carefully if you think this might be relevant to you.

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 **Chapter 1: Steps To Nowhere**

 _~To himself, everyone is immortal; he may know that he is going to die, but he can never know that he is dead~  
Samuel Butler_

* * *

The cold press of fingers upon his cheek was all Harry needed. A feather-light flutter, a gentle caress, and he was abruptly awake.

Blinking his eyes open into the darkness, he squinted through blurriness. His room. The curtains drawn. The creases of a pillow beneath his cheek. With a fumbling hand, he reached for his glasses where they sat – always waiting – on his nightstand and pushed himself upright.

The room was bare. It had always been bare, and looked barely more lived-in after Harry had been sleeping between its walls for five years. His bed that wasn't really his was stationed in the very centre. A mostly empty dresser of worn clothes stood across the room, a single book resting atop it that hadn't been touched in weeks. The heavy drapes blotted out any morning light that might have seeped into the room, but Harry doubted there would have been much. Despite the modest autumn warmth that accompanied most mornings, Grimmauld Place seemed to be something of its own little world; it was untouched by that warmth.

The darkness was pervasive, but Harry didn't reach for his wand to cast a _Lumos_ charm. He didn't bother, and not only because his wand no longer rested on his nightstand as his glasses did every night. It wasn't the place for his wand anymore. Instead, wiping a finger behind his lenses to scrub his eye, he drew his gaze around the room.

"Hello?"

Nothing. Silence. Harry knew someone was there if not who, but no reply was offered. Shoving his blankets aside – they were thick, thicker than autumn warranted, but comfortable nonetheless – he swung his legs over the side of the bed.

"Hello?" Harry asked again, and it was only when he stood, the overlong cuffs of his slacks caught beneath his heels, that he saw her.

She was a little thing. Tiny, and couldn't be older than four or five. A tangle of dark hair hung around her face, swishing around her chin as, on hands and knees, she peered around the end of Harry's bed. Her eyes were wide. Her face was pale. She stared at Harry with wariness that denied the impossibility of her being in his room.

Harry wasn't wary. He wasn't scared, nor even disconcerted to find a little girl in his bedroom as no one _should_ be able to enter. Call it habit, or perhaps the product of exposure, but Harry had years ago grown accustomed to unasked-for visitors appearing into his house as if Apparated.

The little girl couldn't have Apparated into Grimmauld Place, not even with accidental magic. Harry had wards to prevent just such intrusions. Too many people – fans at first, thrumming with hero-worship, and then the more concerning masses – had necessitated such measures. But Harry wasn't worried. Not for the little girl.

If anything he felt just a little… resigned.

Running a hand through his hair, Harry sighed. He lowered himself into a crouch, arms folding across his knees and his chin dropping atop them. He offered a small smile to the little girl, who only stared back at him owlishly. "Hey," he said quietly, the sound of his voice swallowed by the emptiness of the room. "What's your name?"

The girl blinked. Seemingly unconsciously, a hand rose to her lips and she sucked her thumb between her teeth. She offered no reply.

"I'm not going to hurt you," Harry said.

Still no reply.

"Can you at least tell me your name?"

And still nothing. Harry didn't mind. He wasn't even surprised. The sort of people who came to see him, those that made it into his house past the wards – many of them didn't ever utter a word. Many of them couldn't, even. That much Harry had discovered over the years. Most just came with a sore and desperate need, and that need…

"What can I do to help you?"

The little girl twitched at that. Her thumb popped silently from her lips before she shoved it into her mouth once more. She didn't seem any less wary than before, but Harry's words seemed to be a trigger. Shuffling like a three-legged dog on hand and knees, she crawled across the worn wooden floor towards him, her pale summer dress catching beneath her weight with each movement. When she paused before him, her free hand reached up and plucked at Harry's fingers where they rested across his knees.

Harry waited. He waited for the little girl to speak without truly expecting her to. When she blinked up at him expectantly, he offered her another small smile. "You want me to come with you somewhere?"

The girl nodded.

"Will you show me the way?"

The girl nodded again.

"Is it far?"

This time, the girl hesitated. Her lips pursed around her thumb, her teeth nibbling, and then she shrugged. It was an emphatic hitch of her shoulders, tucking them fully to her ears, and Harry couldn't help but smile a little wider. She was cute. A sweet little girl, if quiet, and smart for coming to him as one of the few – or perhaps the only – people who could help her. It was a shame, really. A shame that she had to come at all.

Harry wanted to ask her questions. He always did of those who came to him for help. He wanted to ask where her parents were, how long she'd been away from them, where she lived so that he might walk her home. He wanted to ask her name again, because it made her a little more real. He wanted to know what kind of desperation a five year old could possess that would have her deciding for herself to actively seek help. _His_ help.

But Harry didn't ask. He'd learnt long ago that asking was… intrusive. That it was better not to know. Besides, if _Harry_ didn't like to be questioned, he could hardly expect others to appreciate it. So he held his tongue as the little girl stared solemnly up at him and nodded.

"Can I get changed first?" he asked. "Then we can go. We'll go right away, I promise."

The girl nodded her understanding and, in a retreating shuffled, drew back around the safety of the bed once more. Harry could almost, almost hear the sound of her sucking her thumb as he absently dressed himself to be seen by the public. It was a challenge, sometimes; he wasn't used to going outside more than he had to. Sometimes, he had to remind himself to even wear shoes.

When he descended the stairwell, the dark, empty stairwell eternally rich with dust regardless of how proficiently Kreacher cleaned, the little girl followed him. Her steps made no sound upon the landing, her shoes silent even as they scuffed the floor, and Harry could have been alone with his own quietly thudding footsteps. He paused only briefly at the head of the narrow stairs leading down into the basement kitchen.

"Kreacher," Harry called, only slightly raising his voice. "I'm just stepping out for a little bit."

Barely a heartbeat passed before the crack of house elf Apparition sounded overloudly in the air alongside Harry. He turned his gaze down to the ancient little elf as Kreacher peered up at him through narrowed eyes, back hunched and lips pressed thinly. The little girl shrunk behind Harry, peering out from behind his legs as though she'd never seen a house elf before. For all Harry knew, she hadn't; Muggles visited him as often as witches and wizards. Those who needed his help weren't deterred by their magical abilities.

"Master is leaving?" Kreacher asked, though it seemed more in clarification than a real question.

"Just for a little bit," Harry replied.

"Where will Master be going?"

Harry glanced down at the little girl and she raised her gaze up to meet his own, her eyes as wide as ever. Kreacher hadn't even looked at the girl. He'd stared penetratingly at Harry as though he were the only person in the room. To Kreacher, that fact wasn't all that far from the truth. Despite their rocky beginning, Kreacher had grown to defer to Harry over the years as though he were his true master. Maybe it was because Harry had somehow grown on him like a wart with his constant presence in Grimmauld Place. Just as likely, it was born out of necessity; Kreacher didn't have anyone else to call 'Master'.

Harry understood that. He didn't have much of anyone to turn to either.

With that deference, however, came something akin to protectiveness. It was almost paternal in nature, and more than a little bemusing. Kreacher regarded Harry, his eyes narrowing further until they were little more than disgruntled slits as he awaited a reply. Harry shrugged. "Just out."

"Master is not to be going on another reckless pursuit?"

Harry shook his head. He didn't know what kind of help the little girl needed, but he doubted it was anything so much as reckless. "No. And I don't think I'll be gone for long."

"Master has not been eating his breakfast yet. Kreacher will be making him breakfast."

"I'll get something when I get back."

"Master has been missing dinner this past night as well."

Kreacher's grumble held more than a hint of reprimand to it, and Harry couldn't help but smile a little. Who would have thought that he would find a nanny of sorts in an objectionable house elf? "I'll get something when I get back," he assured Kreacher before dropping his hand in offering to the little girl. Almost instinctively, she reached her own free hand out to his and grasped his fingers. Her clasp was cold.

"I'll see you in a little bit, Kreacher," Harry said, skirting around him to make for the front door. Kreacher continued to grumble as he passed, and a final glance over Harry's shoulder found him still staring – at Harry, not the girl – from where Harry had left him. There was something almost like chiding concern in his gaze.

But Harry disregarded it. He had a stranger to help.

The morning was barely awakening as they stepped outside. The grey light of dawn flooded the streets, broken only by the streetlamps that fought their hardest to illuminate the semi-darkness. The puttering sound of distant traffic that rarely made it onto Grimmauld Place was an unbroken drone on the edges of Harry's hearing, and the thick, familiar smell of city air – a little pungent, a little mellow for the slight breeze – flooded his nostrils.

Not a pedestrian or morning jogger was to be seen as Harry clicked the door closed behind him. He glanced down at the little girl where she clasped his hand, shuffling between her feet on the doorstep. She regarded the street as warily as she had Harry himself. "Where to?" he asked.

She snapped her attention up to him. Her hand bobbed slightly as she sucked her thumb, but she still didn't attempt to speak. Her gaze darted towards the street, back up to Harry, and then she finally tugged his hand and led the way down the steps leading from the Black house.

Harry followed. It was his job of sorts to do so, after all – to help those who needed it, even if no one had expressly assigned it to him. But even if it wasn't his 'job', he still wanted to help the child. There were so many people – so, so many – that Harry wanted to help, needed to help, and only the barest scraping of them could he do anything about.

"Are you sure you know the way?" Harry asked as the little girl drew him unwaveringly down Grimmauld Place. She glanced up at him, nodded rapidly, and picked up her pace. That was good enough for Harry.

They turned a corner. They started down the next road, and crossed to the opposite side after she glanced with exaggerated turns of her head in both directions in a way that made Harry smile. Where were her parents that had so obviously taught her the dangers of careless crossing? He could only wonder.

A road.

A train station.

The _clackety-clack_ of the train itself as it trundled along darkened tracks.

Down another road, this one weaving between early-morning city-goers that strode in the direction of work, or ducked into cafes to scavenge a burst of much-needed caffeine to kickstart their day. Was it a working day? Harry didn't know. He rarely kept track of such things anymore. Weekdays, weekends, public holidays and festivals – they weren't relevatnt to him anymore. He didn't need to know.

The little girl tugged him on unwaveringly. She clearly had her route determined, and for a whole hour Harry followed after her through the narrow streets of London that sparked more vibrantly to life with every passing minute. London never truly slept, but the relative quietness before the storm of mania struck was welcome. Harry had grown accustomed to silence; anything louder that a murmur was a battering assault to his senses.

But he withstood. To follow the little girl, to help her, he ducked his head, stoppered his ears as best he could, and endured it.

The battered old watch on Harry's wrist, the one he'd been given by the Weasley's for his birthday years ago, pointed to six-thirty when the little girl – silent, still sucking her thumb, still holding his hand and tugging him after her – drew him towards a foot bridge. It was small, branched off from a narrow road, and the trickle of a river it arched over barely warranted the title 'river' at all. Harry didn't know its name. He doubted that many in the city did.

The bridge was an old structure. A little rusted, barely wide enough for two people to cross abreast, it was a site all but abandoned in a city that hummed with life. Stepping off the footpath that skirted the nearest building, Harry allowed himself to be drawn down the cement slope to the bridge itself. Graffiti painted the pseudo path in faded colours that he barely glanced at.

The little girl didn't seem to notice either. Her step had picked up into a skip, and Harry had to hasten his own to keep up with her. She scampered and almost slipped, her footsteps as silent as they'd been their entire wayward journey, and her sudden burst of enthusiasm was to the degree that she even released Harry's hand to scramble ahead.

They were near. They were almost near to where Harry needed to be. Shoving his hands into the pockets of his jacket – the autumnal air was warm, but Harry still felt chilled – he trudged after her. When she disappeared beneath the shadow of the narrow bridge, ducking her head and finally tugging her thumb from her mouth to use both hands to steady herself, Harry followed after her.

It was darker beneath. Almost as dark as Harry's room had been that morning, but he could see well enough. He hadn't brought his wand with him, had no artificial light to illuminate his way, but he could see. The little girl, her dress pale almost lambent in the darkness, had fallen to her knees on the grimy, damp concrete. She glanced Harry's way as he sidled towards her, then turned her gaze back down to the ground before her.

Harry followed the line of her sight. The moment he realised just what kind of help the little girl needed, his heart sank. Dropping onto his haunches, he bowed his head and closed his eyes.

Why did they come to him for such needs? Why did people instinctively, as though drawn by magic, come to him with the desperate askance for him to fix what couldn't be fixed? Sometimes, the requests weren't impossible to fulfil. Sometimes, Harry simply had to find someone, or speak to someone, or help retrieve a lost item – a wallet, a phone, a wad of cash stuffed into a sock draw – and they were easy enough. But other times…

Harry had been led to houses so thickly warded that even had his ward-breaking abilities been up to scratch he doubted he would have been able to break through them. He'd been dragged to a cliff side and directed through gestures more than words to retrieve what had been lost at sea days, weeks, even months before. He'd been all but begged to approach families that he had no connection to, to ask words that those seeking his help didn't – couldn't – utter. It was all impossible, and for different reasons.

But this one… this one was both impossible and heartbreakingly sad.

Cold fingers touched his forehead, brushing beneath his fringe, and Harry slowly blinked his eyes open. He met the wide stare of the little girl, abruptly right before him and with her thumb stuck into her mouth once more. She blinked at him, question and plea silently welling forth, before shuffling to the side and gesturing to the ground behind her. To the dead puppy that was far from saving.

Harry sighed. He didn't like dealing with death, though it always found him. He didn't like the finality of it, that it was so uncontrollable – or that he was a bigger part of it than he liked to admit even to himself. Seeing it so blatantly spread before him, Harry felt the reminder of his dislike settle heavily upon his shoulders.

Shuffling forwards in his crouch, he dropped a hand to the mange-ridden puppy's flank. Tufts of its fur were matted, and the poor creature looked to have had its ear all but torn off by something or other. A fight, perhaps. A battle for leavings against another stray that likely outweighed its pathetically small frame. Beneath Harry's fingers, he could clearly make out the ribs beneath taut skin. Not a huff of breath, though. Not even a hint of warmth to suggest it was newly dead.

Why the little girl had brought him to a dog that had clearly been dead for some time, Harry didn't know. Had it simply taken her that long to find him and ask for help? Or had she not understood that the dog was dead in the first place? She was young; Harry knew she likely didn't understand death and its finality, its irreversibility. He raised his chin to meet her hopeful gaze as she all but gnawed on her thumb.

"I'm sorry," Harry said in barely a murmur. His words, though quiet, still echoed slightly off the concrete walls of the alcove beneath the bridge. Sighing, Harry closed his eyes briefly once more, his fingers curling into the dead puppy's matted coat. "I don't think I can help with this."

For a long moment, silence met his words. He hadn't really expected the little girl to speak, but something in him still urged him to wait for some kind of reply. Another touch, maybe, or the barest whisper of feet shuffling on the ground.

None came. None would come either, Harry realised, for when he opened his eyes, it was to find himself alone in the alcove. Alone with a dead puppy and the little girl vanished as abruptly as she'd appeared in his room.

Harry wasn't surprised. The dead had a habit of disappearing without comment.

He still glanced around himself to be sure that she was truly gone, but he wasn't surprised she'd all but fled. They always did. When they realised he couldn't really help them, they left him to wallow in his uselessness and remorse for his inability.

Harry had learnt a lot over the years. He'd learnt that he wasn't good with people, and that interviews – with the _Daily Prophet,_ the in-vogue magazines, and even _The Quibbler_ – were a daunting task akin to torture. He'd learnt that he liked the quiet and to be away from loud noises, but he didn't enjoy being completely alone for too long either. Being alone too much left him open to attack from nightmares and the return of memories that hadn't dimmed in the five years since Voldemort's defeat. If anything, they'd twisted, grown stronger, battering at him more persistently and wearing away what little defences he still had.

Mostly, though, Harry had discovered that he was largely useless. He hadn't been able to become an Auror; it hadn't fit, and his inability to cast offensive curses after the war made it nigh impossible. He'd driven away his friends because he first depressed and then unwittingly disconcerted them with how he was changing – changing without meaning to, without realising it, without _wanting_ to.

Harry had learnt that he couldn't really help people but for the few that came directly to him because he was, somehow, the _only_ one that could help. Because they knew. Because they felt it, like the thrum of magic that plucked at Harry's nerves. Even then, sometimes Harry couldn't help some of them. Not because he didn't want to, but because he couldn't.

Gaze resting on the mangy puppy, Harry felt a tightness seize his throat. His fingers stroked the pathetic little creature, regret welling within him that he hadn't known, that he hadn't been fast enough, even though the little girl had only approached him that morning.

"I'm sorry I couldn't help," he whispered, and it was as much for the puppy as the vanished little girl. He didn't know where she'd gone, but that fact hardly mattered. What mattered was that he'd failed her. What mattered was that he'd been useless. Again.

Rising to his feet, Harry ducked out from the shadow of the footbridge and clambered his way up the concrete slope towards the roadside once more. He would walk back to Grimmauld Place because he needed to. He needed the walk, but otherwise, he had no real choice. He didn't have his wand with him anyway, and even if he had...

Despite the warmth of the morning, Harry wrapped his arms around himself as he strode down the footpath. He hunched his shoulders with each passer-by he accidentally bumped into, chin ducked and gaze upon his old, ragged trainers. The weight that settled upon his shoulders was a force he'd long ago disregarded attempting to alleviate.

It was a warm morning, but Harry still felt cold. He always did these days.

* * *

The silence was equal parts comforting and oppressive when Harry stepped inside number twelve Grimmauld Place once more. It bespoke escape from the mayhem that was welling barely a street or two away, but it also breathed of loneliness.

Harry wasn't _lonely_ , exactly. Or he'd grown to overcome loneliness, could push it aside if it niggled at him too strongly. Four years ago, he would have ached that Molly Weasley no longer came to visit and drop off more food than he could possibly eat before it grew stale. He would have mourned the amiable visits Ginny bestowed upon him despite that they were no longer dating, or when Bill would drop by with Victoire, or Andromeda with Teddy.

Years ago, Harry would have been torn between rage and grief for the fact that Ron hadn't visited in weeks. But not anymore. The feeling had dampened with familiarity.

The house groaned as Harry leant back against the closed front door. It sighed beneath the weight of its own height, a mumble of its own loneliness that it too had grown to embrace rather than resent. Harry closed his eyes as he slumped. If nothing else, he shared that much with the house. If nothing else, he had Kreacher, who wasn't truly a friend and wouldn't ever consider himself one. If nothing else, he had…

Well, they weren't always there, but he did have company upon occasion.

There was a niggle at the back of Harry's head that bespoke the presence of such company. It had been only a handful of years ago that he hadn't even understood what that feeling was, that tapping in his temple and breath of cold chill that was similar yet different to the tug of magic. Now he knew. Now he understood, and as the tapping sprung to mind, a chill prickling his nape, he pushed himself from the door and ghosted silently through the entrance hall and down the hallway to poked his head into the library.

She was there, of course. In the library was where she always sat, though she never read any of the books. Harry didn't know if she could even pick them up. Instead, she sat, staring through the grimy window that could never seem to be properly cleaned, lost in thought. Harry leant against the doorframe, resting his head against the faded wood, and smiled at her a little wearily.

"Hi, Mum."

Lily Potter turned. Her gaze – so like Harry's own as he'd been told countless times – took a moment to focus. When it did, a smile spread across her lips and she rose to her feet, crossing the room in a handful of steps.

"Sweetheart," she said in the barest whisper as she stopped before him. She raised a hand to his face, cupping his cheek in cold fingers that only he could feel, and her smile grew a touch sympathetic. "You look tired."

Harry shrugged. "I just had a visitor this morning," he said.

Lily cocked her head. She looked so young, _was_ young, and Harry was reminded of that every time she appeared before him. She'd died younger than he was now, and though she'd been visiting him for years, she hadn't changed in that time.

Harry found he didn't mind. He didn't really care what she looked like, or how young she was. He didn't care for the same about his father, either, when he visited on less frequent occasions. They were there. They were company. Even if they were… even if they weren't really –

"Are you alright?" Lily asked, just as quietly as before. Her thumb stroked his cheek gently, soothingly.

"I couldn't help her," Harry murmured.

"Harry…"

"I shouldn't really expect to be able to. I know that some of the people I can't help at all. But this one – there was nothing I could have done from the start."

Harry's gaze dropped to his shoes, his fingers tugging at the overlong sleeves of his jacket. It was only when Lily tipped his head up – did she tip it? Or did Harry raise it himself? – that he met her eyes once more. She was of a height with him, Harry noticed, which wasn't particularly tall. He'd never known that before she'd first visited him.

"Tell me?" she asked simply, a question rather than a demand. She always asked. Always offered.

The tightened in Harry's throat seemed to tighten further, and he wasn't sure that he would even be able to talk, but he nodded. Then, whether following Lily's not-tugging pull – because there was never any real weight, any real force, behind that pull – or simply following her suggestion, he trudged after her to the pair of dusty old armchairs propped near the window.

Harry told her. He spoke to her as he often did upon her visits, telling her about the little girl and how she'd appeared in his room. About her request for help and the trip they'd taken across London. He told her about the puppy they'd found, long dead and impossible to save, and the catch in his throat grew almost painful.

"If I'd known," he murmured after he managed to swallow the tightness aside. "If the little girl had told me a few days before, then maybe I could have…"

Lily had been silent throughout Harry's retelling. She often was, though Harry knew such quietness had never been a part of her character. He'd heard enough reminiscing stories about her vibrant chattiness when there had still been people around to tell them. But she spoke up in her hushed whisper when he trailed off. "You couldn't have done anything if it was already dead."

"I know."

"You can't blame yourself for failing to do what no one can."

"Yeah, I know."

"But you still do?"

Harry caught his bottom lip between his teeth. He chewed it for a moment, gaze dropped to his hands in his lap, before nodding slowly. "I do. I always do. Surely, if I can see the people who come to visit, it must be for a reason. Right?"

Lily was silent for a long moment, and when Harry glanced towards her once more, the barest of saddened frowns touched her brow. "I don't know, sweetheart."

"I have to be able to help… right?"

"I don't know."

"Things don't just happen for no reason." Harry gnawed his lip until it started to twinge. "Surely I would have to –"

"Harry?"

Harry's words stuttered off. With a sharp glance, he turned towards the door to the library. He hadn't heard anyone enter the house, but that meant little. And if it was _that_ kind of visitor, they wouldn't have spoken – or at least not so loudly. He glanced towards Lily briefly, and she only shrugged a shoulder.

Harry had barely risen to his feet when the soft thump of footsteps sounded down the hallway towards the library. A moment later and a familiar face poked around the doorframe. Her bushy hair raked back into a messy bun, her comfortable blouse slightly askew, and the cautiously curious and mildly welcoming expression she wore – Hermione looked almost exactly as she had when she visited every other time.

She scanned the room briefly before stepping inside. "I thought I heard your voice."

Slumping back into his armchair, Harry offered Hermione a feeble smile of greeting. It was difficult sometimes, when Hermione visited. Not because he didn't love her. Not because he didn't cherish her visits, and particularly since the Weasleys were so hesitant to do so anymore. It was just that simply…

"Who were you talking to?"

Instinctively, even though years of habit should have had him reacting otherwise, Harry glanced towards his mother. Lily wasn't looking at Hermione. She had eyes only for Harry, as she often did. Harry knew she noticed Hermione, but given that Hermione didn't spare her a glance in return, she seemed to deem her presence largely unnecessary.

Harry plucked at the cuffs of his sleeves once more as he turned back towards Hermione. He shrugged. "Just… you know."

Hermione blinked. Then that cautious curiosity grew a little wary. It was an expression Harry was familiar with, and strangely reminiscent of the puppy girl who had disappeared so abruptly. The hand she held against the doorframe plucked awkwardly at a splinter. "Oh. Um. Sorry, I –"

"It's okay," Harry said, sparing another glance for Lily. "It's just Mum."

Hermione nodded slowly. It was always the same, always an identical response as predictable as her jean-shorts and crisp blouse. "Harry," she began just as slowly. "I don't know if, ah…"

"You don't have to say anything, Hermione," Harry said.

"I know, but –"

"It's alright."

"Harry, she's not really –"

"I know." Harry closed his eyes briefly, and his arms rose to fold across his chest. It was more of an embrace than a gesture of defiance. "Yeah, I know, Hermione. I know she's not really there."

Because she wasn't. Not really – or at least not to anyone besides Harry. He knew that, just as he knew that her death twenty-two years ago hadn't been a fallacy. Just as he knew that Hermione couldn't see her because no one else could. Just as he knew that the puppy girl, and the boy with the blood-stained t-shirt that had visited three days before, and the elderly woman who walked far too sprightly for her age a week ago, hadn't been there either.

They weren't. Not to anyone else. To the world, they were dead, gone, passed – except for the shadow they left behind. That longing shadow, the shadow of need that still tethered them. They needed help, so they came to Harry. They asked, usually without words, and he tried. Sometimes he was successful. Oftentimes he failed.

But Harry didn't tell Hermione that. Not anymore. Not because she was wrong – because Lily, the puppy girl, and every other visitor, they weren't _really_ there – but because she wouldn't understand. He didn't tell Hermione because now he did.

They were dead. Dead and desperate, and Harry was the only one who could see them, the only one who could help. It was a pity then, really, that he wasn't much help at all.

Pasting a poor attempt at a smile upon his face, Harry pushed himself up from the couch. "Can I help you with something, Hermione?"

Hermione's wary expression didn't fade. If anything, it was only shunted to the side, like a post-it note with a pin stuck in it. "I'm just coming for my weekly visit."

"Weekly? But you were here just –"

"That was a week ago, Harry," Hermione said with a sigh. She no longer reprimanded him for his lack of temporal awareness; resigned understanding was something she'd become very good at.

"Oh," was all Harry could think to say.

Hermione sighed again. Then she smiled. It was clearly as much of an effort as Harry's was. "Have you had breakfast yet?" she asked, half turning from the room. "I brought bagels."

"Oh. Thanks?"

"No problem. Come on, have breakfast with me. Have you been up to anything new lately?"

Harry followed her from the room, answering automatically as he always did. He loved Hermione, and he knew she loved him in return. Her weekly visits, even if they seemed something of a chore to her, were testament to that love. But they did grow a little wearying sometimes. Harry followed as she spoke over her shoulder, and only spared a final glance into the library over his own.

His mother smiled at him. Then, as she did, she flickered and disappeared. Gone for today. Always gone, but likely to return at some point. Harry didn't know how to help his mother, but he knew that much.

He followed Hermione and left the empty library behind them.

* * *

A/N: I hope you liked the first chapter! If you did, or you have anything to say, please leave me a review with your thoughts. I'd really appreciate it :)


	2. Chapter 2 - Idle Wanderings

**Chapter 2: Idle Wandering**

It had taken a whole year for Harry to realise that they were dead. Part of the long road to realisation had been because the number of them had been slow in coming at first. Most of them were strangers. Some were only vaguely familiar. Always, they passed only briefly, and barely one glanced in Harry's direction.

Until his mother.

Harry would always remember that day, barely months after the war, when he'd first seen her. In the library, a passing ghost of a figure, he'd seen her and nearly screamed. The war had caused many a screaming response from its survivors, Harry knew, but he'd never fallen prey to such occurrences himself.

But he'd brushed it aside. The first time, he'd thought it a trick of the light. He'd thought his mind was playing with him. He'd thought that those moments he'd seen his mother, those moments before he'd died in the Forbidden Forest months before, had sprung into his mind and coalesced as a hallucination of sorts.

Harry told himself that the first time.

The second time, when he'd seen his father in the basement kitchen, he'd convinced himself the same.

Then he'd seen Fred Weasley, ghosting around Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, and he'd almost, almost convinced himself it was George and his mind was once again playing with him – until he saw George pass within arm's reach of his dead brother.

Harry knew he was going insane. He knew there was something wrong with him, because he'd never been quite right after the war. It wasn't because he slept a little funny now – either not enough too deeply, so much so that Ron had difficulty waking him up on occasion – or that he often lost himself in the moment only to blink back into awareness a surprising hour later. It wasn't because his magic seemed to be acting up either, that the offensive curses and hexes he'd once been so adept at, the defensive spells he managed even better, didn't go quite right. The colour was wrong, or the shields weren't as strong.

None of that convinced Harry he was going more than a little crazy, but they contributed to his overall realisation. It was when he began seeing those who'd died, however – surely died, because he _seen_ them die – that he really questioned himself.

He'd told his friends first. He hadn't wanted to, because if they were hallucinations, it was a problem only he could solve. It was in his head, and Harry would overcome it. Keeping it a secret had become impossible, however, when Hermione and Ron caught him in the act.

"I think she was trying to talk to me," Harry said to Lily, barely twelve months after Voldemort's defeat and when he'd discovered that she could hear him, could actually _hear_ , and could respond. "Her mouth was moving, like she was trying to speak."

"She probably was," Lily said, whispering so quietly her words were almost lost in the breath of air she no longer emitted. "You say you recognised her?"

Harry didn't know. He _thought_ he'd recognised the girl who had approached him at the Ministry the previous day, the day when he'd dragged himself to a reluctant meeting with Kingsley Shacklebolt. That girl, barely older than Harry was himself, had been invisible to those around her. He knew because not a single person looked her way, even as they brushed by her so closely that their shoulders touched. No one saw her, no one felt her – not even Harry when she darted a hand out to touch his arm in the Ministry Entrance Hall and tried to speak to him.

Harry shook his head. He was sitting in one of the sagging old armchairs in the library, what had become one of the rooms he frequented the most in Grimmauld Place. It felt like one of the most welcoming in the house, though that wasn't saying much. Chewing on his bottom lip, Harry plucked at the upholstery on the arm, frowning. "I don't know. Maybe?"

"And you say you think you almost heard her speak?"

"Sort of." Harry nodded slowly. "I don't know. I thought I did, but then I got a bit distracted. Do you think that maybe me knowing her might have something to do with her approaching me?"

Harry had overcome his horror and borderline terror for the 'hallucinations' some time ago. That Lily was there at all – his mother, the mother he'd never gotten the chance to speak to, to tell how much he missed her and loved her despite not knowing her – seemed to erase any impossibility of the situation.

That acceptance had made it easier to accept the others. They were all part of a figment of Harry's mind, he was sure, but that didn't make them any less real. Not to him. Maybe not to the world, too as it would happen; what did he know about ghosts and souls that hadn't crossed over yet? They truly could be there, for all he knew.

"I don't know why she came to you," Lily whispered, shaking her head. She sat on in her own armchair, straight-backed and studying Harry like a curiosity she was all too fond of. He liked that. He liked the inquisitive expression she wore. It reminded him a little of Hermione. "Perhaps we can test it? Could you speak back to them, the next time someone speaks to you?"

"I could," Harry said, nodding slowly. "I guess it's worth a try. Do you think I'll see her again if she –?"

"Harry? Mate, what're you doing?"

In an instant, the stagnation Harry had found himself in with Lily shattered. As had happened at first, in that first year, those first months, Lily disappeared like an extinguished candle as soon as their privacy was encroached upon. Harry winced slightly, her sudden absence like a punch in the gut, but he was twisting towards the doorway a moment later.

Ron stared at him from the landing. Hermione stood at his side, frowning slightly. She stared at Harry while Ron's gaze darted around the room. "Who were you talking to?"

Harry could have lied. He could have pretended he'd been speaking to himself. But these were his friends, the two people he trusted the most in the world – or at least the two who were solidly there – and he wanted to share with them.

Ron and Hermione didn't think he was crazy. Or at least they didn't he was in so many words. It was spoken in other ways, however, and meant the same thing. "Maybe we should find someone you can talk to?" had faded into "You need help, Harry," and then "It's disconcerting; even with the Resurrection Stone you shouldn't be able to see them like this… right?"

There was something wrong with Harry's head. He knew it. That knowledge was made no less relevant for the fact that he started speaking to those who approached him and touched him without really touching like that first girl had. It didn't stop him from trying to help them when they beckoned him after them, or pointed him in a direction with an expression so desperate and pleading he would have dragged himself where they asked if his feet had been broken and bleeding.

It was that reason Harry withdrew behind the walls of Grimmauld Place. That, and the fact that the _Daily Prophet_ had somehow gotten wind that he was having 'episodes' and sought to pursue the rumours.

It was that reason that Harry spoke less and less to those around him, because as time passed, his conversations grew increasingly subject to observation by silent listeners awaiting his time.

It was that reason that Hermione started to look at him like he was sick.

And it was that very reason that the Weasleys no longer spoke to him. Harry regretted that, even if he didn't regret his actions that had led to their inevitable rejection him. How could he, when Fred had asked so desperately?

The birthday of the twins two years after the war was as morose as the one previously. George didn't like celebrating anymore. He hadn't said as much, but the fact that he'd disappeared halfway through the day the previous year when Molly had attempted something – small, familial, a little desperate herself but with the right intentions – was indicative enough.

That year, they skipped it. Harry could see when he visited the Burrow alongside everyone else for dinner – not a birthday dinner, just 'a dinner' – that it was a struggle for Molly. That she desperately wanted to shower George with love, even if their celebration would be shadowed by Fred's absence. He saw how much she longed, how quiet Arthur became, how everyone else – every Weasley, Andromeda and Teddy, Hermione and her parents – grit their teeth behind their over-bright smiles. It hurt to witness, because two years wasn't long enough. It wasn't enough to overcome Fred's death.

"They all look so sad."

Harry didn't raise his head at the whispered words. He couldn't. The instinct to turn was almost compulsive, but he somehow withheld the urge.

"Birthdays should be happy and smiley. George should be happy. Now he doesn't even have a cake?"

Harry caught his bottom lip between his teeth. _I shouldn't say anything. I shouldn't_.

"Why is that, Harry? Just because I'm not able to share it with them doesn't mean it can't be celebrated, right?"

That Fred addressed Harry directly made it impossible to ignore him further. Like a magnet drawn to a lodestone, Harry turned towards where Fred stood at his side. They always did, all of the visitors, even when the object of their affection – mother, father, sibling, lover – stood in the same room with them. Whether it was because they were a product of Harry's imagination or that his magic or whatever it was kept them present, he didn't know, but he'd accepted it. A whole year and he was beginning to embrace his insanity.

"They're mourning," Harry murmured to Fred, and he couldn't look back at the living room and its occupants that had reclined after their simple, quiet meal. "You can't blame them."

Fred frowned at him. He looked exactly as he had before he'd died, and as such was a long sight better than George. George had grown thinner over the past years. His eyes were always heavy. He barely spoke as he once had, and though he kept his shop running, it was with listlessness that bordered on disregard. Had they stood side-by-side, Harry doubted any would be able to confuse the once-identical twins even for a second.

"It's been two whole years," Fred whispered, as quietly as all of the visitors who could speak did.

"You mean only two years."

"Two years. They should be moving on. George should be…"

"They lost a brother and a child," Harry said, and it was only that they'd shared that very conversation before that he withheld from questioning just how Fred could be so blind. "You can't tell me you wouldn't feel the same if you were in George's place."

"I can," Fred said stubbornly, "because I'll never have to be."

"Fred," Harry said.

"They need to move on. It hurts to look at them."

" _Fred_."

"Can't you tell them, Harry? Tell them I don't want them to be sad anymore."

"Fred, I can't just do that."

"What?"

At the sound of George's voice, Harry snapped his gaze across the table. It took him all of a second to realise he'd draw the attention of more than one person. Had he really been talking so loudly? Everyone but Teddy stared at him with varying degrees of wariness, confusion, and horror.

Harry felt Fred leave his side. At that point, his visitors hadn't stuck around when other people spoke to Harry; it was as though they felt discomforted by his divided attention. As he did, however, in the split second before he snapped out of presence, the whispered words of his parting dribbled into Harry's ear. "Tell them, Harry. Please."

It was that please that did it. How could Harry say no? Visitors had asked Harry for help even without using words, had asked for his assistance, and he'd done what he could. How could he not offer aid to one who had been his friend and seemed otherwise uncertain of just what was keeping him tethered?

Before the eyes of every Weasley, Harry spoke the words he would never be able to retract. He turned a corner that would leave the family he loved shrinking and turning from him. "Fred doesn't want you to be sad," he said, staring at George but speaking to the whole room. "He doesn't."

George paled. He always did whenever anyone spoke Fred's name. Harry saw his throat bob with a swallow and before anyone could speak otherwise, he shook his head. "You wouldn't know what he would have wanted."

"I do," Harry said quietly. He ignored Hermione's widening gaze, or how Ron silently drew back from him, his face greying. "I do know."

"No, you don't, you –"

"George, I do."

"Harry –"

"I _do_."

George was on his feet. In an instant, his pale face was mottled and he was glaring at Harry as he rarely glared at anyone. They were friends, the two of them, but even through Harry's insistence and obligatory request, he knew he'd pushed George too far.

"You don't know anything, Harry," George hissed. "No one does. Fred is dead, so he can't tell us what he would have wanted –"

"He told _me_ ," Harry said, cutting George off. He couldn't help it; it wasn't Fred urging him to speak anymore. Harry wanted them to know. "He tells me all the time. He wants you to stop mourning him, to have a proper birthday, and to move on. I know it sounds impossible, but it's what he wants."

At that moment, Harry knew that he considered his hallucinations something more. He'd never quite considered, never been brave enough, perhaps, to truly contemplate how it was possible or whether it was _really_ real and a product of magic. But as he spoke, Harry realised: he believed. He believed Fred had stood beside him and all but asked to be forgotten.

Harry lost a little piece of the Weasley's that day. A little piece that grew and grew over time. He regretted that, if not his words. Harry never retracted them, and that was probably the reason that he started losing more of them. Molly's visits to Grimmauld Place for dinner grew less and less frequent. Charlie stopped writing friendly letters, and Bill's offers of welcome at his and Fleur's beachside house dwindled to next to nothing. George wouldn't look at Harry anymore, and Arthur's eyes were always so sad, so weary, that Harry stopped taking himself to the Burrow at all.

"You hurt them," Ginny had told Harry upon one of her overnight stays in Grimmauld Place when she still undertook them. She was one of the few who kept talking to Harry for a time after what he came to acknowledge as their 'breaking apart', and even she seemed reluctant and a little pained upon those visits. "They don't like to talk about Fred, Harry. It hurts them." Harry heard the unspoken 'me' even through Ginny's silence.

She hadn't dropped by for some time. Not for a long time, for that matter.

What was the worst, however, was losing Ron. Ron's withdrawal stung as even the ache of losing the rest of the Weasley's didn't. They'd had their fights in the past, but this was different somehow. There was no raging. There were no shouts or curses, no storming out of the room with bellows of resentment. As with Ginny, Ron's visits to Grimmauld Place simply grew less and less frequent. They didn't stop being friends but simply drifted apart.

Hermione remained. She was clearly torn between Harry and Ron, but she still visited. Her once-a-week check-ups as Harry thought of the where sometimes speckled with additional nights where she would stop by for dinner, or peruse the library as an excuse to see how he was doing. Harry far from resented her for her ploy; if anything he was grateful. It was a reprieve from house elves and dead people.

Because that was what Harry's life became. Within years, he sunk into the shadows of the Wizarding world. He barely stepped outside Grimmauld Place to the degree that Hermione often commented that he appeared far too pale. He ducked away from confrontations in the few instances that he did venture from behind the walls of safety and isolation, and he lost himself in his visitors, in his pursuits of helping them, of idling away the hours conducting meaningless pastimes that held little consequence in the depths of the old Black family residence.

Harry slept too much, and then not enough.

He would pass days without speaking and forget to eat, only to wonder why his voice hurt and his limbs felt heavy when Kreacher all but dragged him to the basement kitchen.

On occasions, he would retreat to the attic to simply stare out of the open window and lose himself in thought that he could remember nothing of hours later.

For Harry, life had changed gradually but drastically after the war. He'd lost his family because he'd tried to help members of that family. For reasons he didn't understand, he was losing his magic while somehow gaining hallucinations that weren't really hallucinations at all. His closest friend acted more like his mother, and his mother had in turn become his best friend, even if she did at times disappear for weeks on end without explanation.

Harry could no longer consistently Apparate, so he didn't step outside. His feeble attempts at casting Glamour Charms to pass incognito abandoned him and only reinforced his need to remain in isolation from the press, the passers-by, and the idle Muggle who might speak to him for unknown reasons. Harry couldn't properly cast a _Lumos_ charm anymore, so he spent most of his nights in utter darkness. Cleaning Charms, _Accios_ , simple transfigurations – all of it was fading.

In five years, Harry's life turned upside down. He was alone but for Hermione. He had nothing to do with himself – or nothing outside of helping the people that sought his aid.

That was all Harry was. It was all he'd become. The bravery he'd has as a Gryffindor, the determination he'd possessed to defeat Voldemort, the love he'd had for the Wizarding world in spite of its flaws – it was a little difficult to be brave when he felt so small. It was hard to be determined before others when he was only determined for something no one could perceive. And it was next to impossible to continue to love the Wizarding world when he was hounded by the press, when stares either widened into melting worship or narrowed into glares, and the few people he did love had proceeded with their lives without him.

Harry's life had changed since the world had been rid of its terrorising Dark Lord, but in an unexpected direction. All Harry could do was trudge through it and embrace the knowledge that he drifted closer and closer to death with each step. Only…

Only it was in a somewhat different manner to most people's relationship with Death. Harry didn't need to die to greet it.

* * *

"Please, Harry."

"No."

"Please? Come on, just for a second or two."

Harry didn't like going outside. It had little to do with the sun, though he would admit he found the glaring brightness discomforting. It wasn't even so much because of the people anymore, though he always felt on-edge even when passing through Muggle streets. He simply felt out of his element, and that distortion wasn't dampened any by the jacket and hood he wore despite the summer head, nor that he kept his head eternally bowed.

Hunching his shoulders slightly, Harry didn't spare Fred a glance where he knew he still accompanied him. "I really don't feel comfortable going into Diagon Alley," he muttered, ignoring the potential questioning glances of those around him who might assume he spoke to himself.

Fred sighed heavily. He'd spent the past hour alongside Harry since Harry had first dared a trip outside of Grimmauld Place. Harry hadn't seen Fred in days – weeks, even, and only once since his birthday on the first of April – but Fred seemed to be making up for lost time with his incessant presence.

"I just want to check," Fred said, his voice a whisper as all of the visitors' voices were. They seemed incapable of speaking louder, all of them, and Harry had discovered that it was only those he had known before their deaths could speak at all. Fred was one of the more talkative of them all. "Please, Harry."

Harry closed his eyes briefly. He didn't want to disappoint Fred. A part of him still ached for his friend's death, even if that death wasn't complete and didn't remove him from Harry's life entirely. That Fred was still dead was unshakeable; even if Harry could still see him, could still talk to him, he was dead. Harry was the exception in that he could see him at all.

"You can go yourself, can't you?" Harry mumbled, shoving his hands into his pockets. His fingers felt cold, almost clammy, as they did every day. Why he was so cold Harry didn't know, though he silently attributed it to the fact that he spent so much time around dead people. "You don't need me to come with you."

"Yes, I do," Fred said shortly.

His tone, even quieter than it had been, drew Harry up short. He paused in step in the middle of the street, barely noticing the pedestrians that swam past him like a school of fish. He stared at Fred as Fred watched him solemnly in turn, his expression more downcast than Harry had ever seen it in life.

Harry opened his mouth to reply, but he closed it a moment later. He bowed his head once more. That was… he couldn't ask what Fred meant by that. It was an unspoken rule – though instilled by Harry himself of his visitors, Harry didn't quite know – that he didn't ask about what they did when they weren't at his side. Did they just disappear? Was it like they were sleeping? Or did they briefly cross the veil? Were they aware?

Harry didn't want to know. He had a closer relationship with Death than most people; he didn't need to learn more about his unwanted affiliation.

"Sorry," Harry said quietly.

Fred shrugged. He still stared at Harry, his expression faintly haunted, but he attempted a smile that was but a shadow of that he'd worn in life. "It's okay. I just really, really want to go."

Slowly, Harry nodded. Whatever resistance had been within him crumpled like a wall before a wrecking ball. "Alright, then. We'll go. To see."

Fred's smile widened slightly. "Thanks, Harry."

"But just to see. I'm not going to talk to anyone for you and upset them."

"That's fine."

"And I've still got to pick up some paint. Preferably not magical, too, so I'm going to have to go to the hardware store afterwards."

Fred shook his head, chuckling in a whisper. "I don't understand your painting fetish. What's wrong with Grimmauld Place's walls as they are?"

Harry shrugged a shoulder. He had no explanation for that. His painting of the walls was as nonsensical as his constant resorting of the library, or his hours spent staring out of the attic windows. He couldn't explain it anymore than he could why he baked trays of biscuits that grew stale because he didn't eat them, or why he felt like he was the one – him, not Kreacher – who had to maintain the cleanliness of the primary fireplace into the house. Few enough people used it as a Floo entrance, but it was enough that Harry bothered.

So it was that they made their way to Diagon Alley. It was regretful that there were people about at midmorning, and thus eyes to see him with as Harry stepped into the Alley itself, but it was unavoidable. The Leaky Cauldron was empty enough, and with his hood pulled high around his face and his head bowed, Harry thought he might have gone unnoticed.

Someone would see him, though, he knew. Someone would notice him, and his unwanted public appearance would be splattered across the _Daily Prophet_ by morning the next day. Harry knew that. There was no escaping it. Not that it really mattered because he never read the _Prophet_ anyway, but… it was unfortunate. Harry didn't like the limelight any more now than he ever had. He liked it less, even.

Strangely enough – or at least Harry considered it strange on a detached level – the wall leading into Diagon Alley opened to his touch without his wand. The bricks parted and, peering through in both directions to the sparse smattering of morning shoppers, Harry hastened through. Fred followed at his side, keeping pace with each step. If there could be said to be a sprightly dead man, it was Fred.

Weasley's Wizard Wheezes was always abuzz with activity. Even in the morning, even after years after which the novelty of its wares should have faded, and even with a less than jovial owner, it was alive with shoppers and laughter. Harry paused across the street from it, hands till shoved into his pockets, and stared at the brightly-lit windows stuffed to the brim with whizzing gadgets and shelves overflowing with sweets and prank toys.

"It's still as busy as ever," Fred murmured from Harry's side.

Harry nodded, even if he knew no more of that fact that Fred did himself. His last visit had been when Fred had asked _last_ time. "Lee Jordan keeps it afloat, apparently."

"He was always weirdly good with money handling," Fred said, nodding.

"Yeah. And Ron helps with, you know," Harry tugged a hand free and waved it vaguely, "the inventing and stuff."

Fred uttered a mirthless chuckle. "'Inventing' and stuff?"

Harry shrugged. "You know I don't know anything about that stuff."

"Shame that. You were our original funder."

"I gave you winnings that weren't mine. That hardly constitutes –"

"Is he alright?"

Harry cut himself off as Fred, gaze still locked on the store he'd built over half a dozen years ago, murmured the same question he always did. He stared at Fred for a moment, waited as a wizard and his son wandered past with ice-creams in hand and distracted chatter, before speaking. "I don't know."

"Is he getting better?"

"I… I don't know, Fred."

"He should be, right? It's been ages."

Harry shook his head slowly, not in denial but in ignorance. He knew no more about George's mental state than Fred did. Less, in fact, because Harry never actually saw him. "Sorry, Fred," he said, ignoring the curious glance of a witch as she skirted around him. "I don't know."

Fred huffed a breath that he didn't need. His eyes locked upon then followed a customer as they clattered from his store, arms overflowing with paper bags printed with the WWW logo. A longing, almost hungry brightness swam in his eyes before he dragged his gaze back to the shop. "I'll be right back?" he said, a question that was more of a statement, before he was striding, gliding, _moving_ however he did towards the door. He disappeared before he reached the shop, and Harry could only assume he dove inside in search of his brother.

With a sigh, Harry slumped back against the wall of _Magical Menagerie_ , the clicks and chatters of the animals within a vague noise on the edges of his hearing. He stared at Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, watching as another customer exited only to be replaced by two more. A handful of witches and wizards, those who looked barely old enough to be in school, hastened past him. A moment later, an elderly man in flowing robes passed the other way. After that, a woman tailed by two children, then a middle-aged wizard with a crooked hat that paused in step when he caught sight of Harry.

Harry ignored him. He didn't make eye contact. Word would still get out, if not from that particular wizard than from someone else, but he didn't need to encourage it. He waited as the sun climbed slowly into the sky, eyes glued upon the shop that he could no longer enter, even if he was the 'original funder' as Fred dubbed him.

George wouldn't want him there. Harry didn't think George hated him, but he wouldn't want him there.

It was pure happenstance that, after barely half an hour of waiting, the door opened to emit a familiar figure of bright red hair. Harry almost straightened, thinking it was Fred, until he caught sight of Ron's face. Then he slumped back against the wall, ducking his chin and peering up from the edge of his hood.

He wasn't ashamed to see Ron. It wasn't that he _didn't_ see him, even if their meetings were brief at best. It was only… Ron didn't seem to want to see him all that much. Harry could understand that; he really could, especially after Harry found it impossible to deny his words and admit that he hadn't seen Fred at all. He couldn't do that. Not to Fred. Still, it saddened him, and as so often happened, Harry felt weight settle on his shoulders as he saw Ron pitch a colourful stand promoting 'New Wares!' just to the side of the door.

He wanted ot say something. Harry wanted to greet his old friend. He wanted to call out, to wave, to have Ron turn towards him and grin like he used to when they were kids. But he didn't. Harry's hands remained stuffed in his pockets, and he couldn't even bring himself to straighten from his lean against the wall.

As it happens, he didn't need to. Ron didn't glance in his direction, intent as he was upon setting up the stand with focused efficiency. He was good at his job, Harry thought – or he was good as far as Harry could see. Ron had forfeited dreams of being an Auror at about the same time Harry had, but while Harry had retreated behind wooden walls and tucked himself away from the world, Ron had found his niche working with his brother and Lee Jordan. He practically ran the joint, given that George was reportedly less than enthusiastic some days and Lee Jordan juggled between managing the accounts and running his sidelong radio show.

Ron finished his work and turned back into the shop without noticing Harry at all. As he did, tugging the door open to stride within, Fred appeared and flowed around him with the strange, gliding step that Harry knew as being typical of visitors. His head was tucked and he was striding to Harry's side without a backwards glance towards the joke shop.

Harry straightened, mouth opening in query, but before he could utter a word Fred was shaking his head. "No," he said, predicting Harry's askance. His expression was even more solemn, eyes heavy lidded and lips tugging downwards, than it had been before. "He's not any better. I just… I don't know what…"

Swallowing, Harrys stepped tentatively to Fred's side. "Sorry," he said.

"For what?" Fred asked, his gaze locked on the road at his feet.

"Because I don't – I don't know what –" Harry cut himself off. _I don't know what I can do to help him._ "He doesn't want to see me, so…"

"I know, Harry," Fred said, sighing. His head tipped up, backwards, and he regarded the sky instead. "I know he doesn't. And I'm…" Fred swallowed thickly, the glug nearly audible. "I'm sorry about that."

Harry didn't brush aside the apology. He couldn't, just as Fred didn't do the same for his own. A part of Harry did blame Fred for the deterioration of his relationship with the Weasleys, just as he knew that Fred blamed him in turn for not somehow fixing George. There was no resentment, no anger or hatred, entailed in that blame. It was purely fact.

"Would you like me to try to talk to him?" Harry asked quietly, once more ignoring the glance of two young women as they passed him with frowns wrinkling their brows. One of them stumbled a little, her eyes widening, and she immediately spun to whisper into her friend's ear as they hastened away. _Another person likely to alert the_ Prophet.

"You don't want to do that," Fred said, smiling without any amusement.

"No," Harry readily admitted. "But I would if you asked me to."

"Thanks, Harry." Fred raised a hand to Harry's shoulder, and even through his jacket, Harry could feel the coldness of his fingers. It wasn't really a weight, just as his mother's touches weren't really a touch, but he felt it nonetheless. "You're a real friend. Sorry that George doesn't realise that."

Harry shrugged beneath Fred's fingers. He had nothing to say to that. Fred, similarly, seemed to have nothing to say in return. Without another word, the turned away from Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, away from George and Ron and the life Fred had unwillingly left behind, and walked away. In seconds, Fred had disappeared, and Harry left Diagon Alley as alone as he'd appeared to any eyes who cared to watch when he'd entered.

* * *

"I have your wand for you."

Harry paused in the act of pulling the kettle off the stove and glanced over his shoulder. Hermione sat at the basement kitchen table, her chin propped in a hand and Harry's wand resting before her.

"Oh." Harry blinked. "Thanks."

"You didn't even notice I took it, did you?"

Shrugging, Harry turned back to the kettle. "No. Not really."

Hermione sighed. Harry heard the creak of her seat as she leant backwards, weariness in her tone. She worked hard, he knew. As a junior solicitor of _Barnes, Barnes, & Butterwax_, her hours were long, rigorous, and usually stressful. He knew she'd spent more than one night sleeping at the office simply because she hadn't the self-awareness to leave before she fell into a doze at her desk. That she still made the time to see Harry, even with her crowded schedule, meant something to him.

 _God bless Hermione,_ he thought as he poured her a cup of tea _. I don't know what I'd do without her_.

"You know," Hermione said as she accepted the offered teacup and poured a portion of milk into it, "that concerns me."

"What does?" Harry said, accepting the milk when she offered it to him.

"That you're not worried."

"About?"

"About your magic." Hermione fiddled with his wand with one hand as the other twisted her teacup on its saucer. She frowned down at her fingers. "It worries me that your magic acts up so much."

Hermione didn't know the half of it. Harry knew that, from her perspective, his magic was indeed simply 'acting up'. He knew she thought that minor mistakes and deviations from intentions were the primary reason he shied away from using magic at all, that it was the fear of what _could_ happen that withheld his casting.

She didn't know. She didn't know that Harry couldn't cast magic anymore not because he'd lost his magic but because normal, run-of-the-mill magic didn't seem to work for him. He still had magic – but it was of a distinctly different kind to the magic that anyone else in Harry's knowledge had.

He didn't tell Hermione about that. She had enough trouble attempting to convince herself that he wasn't crazy because he saw dead people. Harry couldn't load such a weight onto her; not when he hardly understood that weight himself.

"Don't trouble yourself," Harry said, cupping his own teacup in both hands and taking a sip. The heat of the ceramic did little to warm his eternally chilled fingers. "It doesn't worry me."

"But it should," Hermione insisted. "I've run some tests on your wand to try and determine if it's something to do with that –"

"Thank you," Harry muttered dryly.

"- but nothing." Hermione's lips thinned as she shook her head, ignoring his interruption. "Apparently there's nothing wrong with your wand."

"I know there isn't," Harry said with a small sigh. How many times had they shared that discussion? "It's my magic itself that's got something wrong with it."

Hermione's lips thinned further until they almost disappeared entirely. "You should be worried about this, Harry. Magical withdrawal is a serious issue."

"It's not magical withdrawal," Harry said, briefly closing his eyes. How many times had they shared this discussion, too? Hermione seemed convinced that Harry was somehow experiencing the minimisation of his magic that typically afflicted elderly witches and wizards and most often those with onset of Dementia. He suspected she likely, and perhaps unconsciously, considered his hallucinations to be of a similar by-product. "We've talked about this, Hermione. It's fine."

"Harry, it's not fine."

"I'm not worried."

"Harry –"

"I get along just fine without it."

"You're not –"

"And besides," Harry raised his voice slightly as he rarely did these days. "If you want to be worried about someone it should be yourself."

Harry was deflecting. He knew he was; he'd grown rather adept at doing just that. It was necessary because, despite that once upon a time the thought of being bereft of his magic would have been terminally painful, now he didn't mind. Harry's magic hadn't left him. It had merely changed its direction and its shape. He wasn't so sure he liked its new form, so he chose to look the other way. Sometimes he could almost ignore it entirely.

But that wasn't the only reason for his deflection. Mostly, Harry wanted Hermione to cease her worrying. She was exhausted, he knew, and not only because the evidence was sagging shoulders and leaving dark smudges beneath her eyes. Harry's magic wasn't good for much of the traditional enchantments anymore, but it excelled in other areas. One such area was a certain kind of empathy; he felt deterioration, whether it be medically or from simple weariness. Harry knew Hermione was exhausted because he could feel it.

Hermione opened her mouth for a moment to reply. Then she closed it again and slumped back in her seat. It was a testament to how often they'd shared such an exchange that she let the subject go as easily as she did. Hermione was nothing if not tenacious.

She puffed a sigh, gaze falling to where she fiddled with Harry's wand as if it were her own. "Do I look that bad?"

Harry shrugged. "You look tired."

"So bad?"

"Tired."

Hermione sighed again. Raising both hands to her face, she scrubbed at her eyes. "Work is just a little hectic at the moment, and on top of that the Victim's Liberation Front has all but exploded over the past few days."

"What's going on?" Harry said, lowering his tea. It had cooled already, faster than it likely should have done from exposure to his cold hands. That was a little piece of magic too, Harry suspected; his icy fingers were more than a little unnatural.

Hermione peered at him through her fingers. "With which one?"

"Both," Harry prompted.

Hermione resumed her scrubbing. "A new case has flooded into the office, and our defendant has been accused of manslaughter so it's kind of a big thing."

"Shit."

Hermione nodded. "Yeah. Shit. I hate manslaughter and murder cases, even if the defendant is innocent. The entire firm gets hyped up on the excitement, but I just find it a little sad, you know? There's so much legality and formality surrounding the situation that I think most people forget that someone actually died."

Harry lowered his gaze to his stagnant tea. Hermione wouldn't know how much her words struck him. She wouldn't know how much they both chilled and warmed him, either. He hated contemplating the dead, even if such thoughts hung unshakeably on the edges of his consciousness. At the same time, however, that Hermione showed her own regret and heartfelt pain for the loss…

 _I'm not alone in that regard, even if we do view death just a little differently._ "Sorry," Harry found himself murmuring. "I know you don't like dealing with that sort of thing."

Hands falling into her lap, Hermione sighed heavily once more. She looked far older than her twenty-three years as she stared solemnly at her cup. "Yeah, well, I was the one who chose to become a solicitor. It's a part and parcel of the job, I'm afraid." She shook her head, then abruptly leant forwards and snatched up her cup. She gulped half of it down before she paused to continue. "But that's probably the least stressful part of it. The Victim's Liberation Front is what's the worst at the moment."

Harry folded his forearms across the table, abandoning his own tea for his attentiveness. The basement kitchen was silent but for Kreacher's murmured grumbles as he pottered around the room. It always felt achingly empty when Hermione wasn't with him, enough that when she was, Harry ensured that he spared her as much of his attention as he could manage.

"What's going on?" he asked.

"Narcissa Malfoy has died."

Harry blinked. He opened his mouth to reply, paused, and then tucked his chin to lower his gaze once more. That was unexpected. A little saddening, too.

The Victim's Liberation Front – or VLF, as they'd taken to calling themselves – was a force that had been built from less than nothing five years before. At the cessation of the war, following Voldemort's defeat, the wealth of Dark witches and wizards that were apprehended, tried, and shipped off to Azkaban were at an all-time high. Most of them were guilty, and some even openly admitted that guilt.

Others were less so.

Narcissa Malfoy firmly believed in that innocence. She was one of the leading members of the VLF, and it was little secret she strode forth with her head held high primarily for the sake of her husband. Narcissa hadn't escaped the war without her own punishments, but while she lived with decidedly less wealth than she'd once possessed, she still maintained her freedom.

It was Narcissa who, allegedly, strove the hardest to build the VLF. It was Narcissa who spoke the loudest in defence of the Death Eaters who were threatened into subjugation. It was Narcissa Malfoy's name that appeared again and again in the _Daily Prophet_ and she who was the one who had gradually altered the perspective of the occasional reporter from shunning and glaring to contemplative and ponderous. The last _Prophet_ Harry had read, an issue that had been from nearly two years ago, had highlighted just that shift in opinion.

 _NARCISSA MALFOY SPEAKS OF INHUMANE TREATMENT OF AZKABAN PRISONERS_

The article had caused quite an outcry, both for and against the VLF. Harry hadn't beheld that indignation himself, but he'd heard enough about it. Apparently that moment had been the turning point for Hermione; she'd always been proudly defensive of those who couldn't stand for themselves. As a legal representative, Harry supposed it was only natural that her attention would turn towards the incarcerated.

It was a bone of contention between she and Ron, Harry knew, though he only did because Hermione had told him. Only the once, it had been the most recent time she'd stayed the night at Grimmauld Place rather than returning to the bed she shared with Ron.

"He doesn't understand how I can feel any kind of sympathy for the Death Eaters. Especially after what they did, who they killed." Hermione had shaken her head, and Harry hadn't needed to stretch his imagination to know she spoke of Fred. "He's not angry about it, just confused. I don't know how to explain to him that it's not sympathy but compassion. I don't need to feel _for_ them. I just… care."

That was Hermione in a nutshell. She 'just cared'. Somehow, despite the wrongs done in the war and, in some instances, even to her personally, she cared. Harry had always known she was strong, but he didn't think he truly realised just how much until that moment.

Hermione stood by the VLF because they were the underdogs. She worked alongside the families of those who stood behind bars – those imprisoned justly or otherwise – and she held her head high. She raised her voice in support, and her fame, her name, and the heroism of her actions in the war had a staggering impact upon the VLF's movement.

Harry didn't think he could ever be that strong. Not anymore. He could barely step outside, let alone speak on others' behalf. That was where he and Hermione differed; while he was stuck in his head when not communicating with people already dead, Hermione spoke for those alive and in need of help. Harry admired her for that even as he hated himself a little for his own actions. If the most he could do to support Hermione was offer her an ear to voice her regrets to, then he would do so readily.

"I'm sorry," Harry finally said, speaking into the ringing silence that followed Hermione's announcement.

Hermione blinked, starting from her thoughts. "What?"

"About Narcissa. I know you worked with her and the Liberation Front. I'm sorry if…"

Though a crumpling visage of regret settled upon Hermione's face, she shook her head. "It's okay. I didn't actually know her that well."

"Even so."

"I just…" Knuckling an eye – though from weariness or to hide her tears, Harry didn't know – Hermione sighed heavily for the umpteenth time that evening. "It's just a little bit sad, you know? She was a pretty strong woman and all, and…" Shaking her head, Hermione frowned down at her teacup. "It's raised a few questions, to say the least."

"Such as?" Harry asked.

"Some people think it was foul play."

Harry felt his eyebrows rise. "Someone killed her?"

Hermione's lips thinned once more. Her frown became a glare. "There are speculations. The VLF stands on the cusp of freeing some of their defendants. It wouldn't be surprising if someone thought the only way to delay that eventuality – because it _is_ inevitable – is to take Narcissa out of action."

Harry's jaw tightened. A sick clench in his gut almost made him bring up the minimal tea he'd just swallowed. It sat heavily and objectionably in his belly as his hands curled around his chilled cup of tea.

Harry hated that. He hated killing. Maybe it was hypocritical of him, for even he had partaken of such killings and attempts in the past, but he still hated it. If his proximity to death had taught him anything, it was that life was precious. Proper life, not the half-life that Harry lived with his feet on either side of the veil, but _life_.

That someone could kill Narcissa Malfoy, even with the crimes she'd committed in the past, simply for an attempt of liberation? It was sickening.

"I wonder how Malfoy's holding up."

With an effort, Harry dragged himself from his reverie. He blinked up at Hermione, momentarily confused, before it clicked. "You mean Draco Malfoy?"

Hermione, her glare fading to a melancholic frown once more, swirled her teacup between her hands. "I know it's not my place and all, but I can't help but wonder. He's a bit of a recluse, you know."

"That makes two of us," Harry said quietly.

"I only wonder how he's holding up. If maybe he'll even step into her shoes and even try to free his father from Azkaban." Hermione shook her head slowly. "I can't really see it of him, from what I remember of him from school, though I can't say I've heard much of him since."

"He did kind of disappear or something, didn't he?"

"Do you think he's changed?"

Harry opened his mouth to reply that he didn't care. Why should he? Draco Malfoy was nothing to him, just as most of the people in the world were nothing. Harry might be repulsed and vehemently horrified by mindless killing, but he didn't have the compassion for people that Hermione possessed. Harry's attention was far too consumed with those who were dead and the few friends who truly meant something to him.

Those few were increasingly sparse these days.

But one look at Hermione's face and Harry bit his tongue. She didn't want to hear such words. Hermione was hurting, and even if it was a sympathetic hurt for people she should, by right, hate for what they'd done, she still ached. Harry cared about Hermione, possibly more than anyone else in the world, alive or dead. He didn't want to upset her.

"I don't know," he said instead. "Haven't we all changed a little bit?"

Hermione met his gaze. A sad little smile touched her lips. "Some more than a little bit," she said. Then she turned back to her tea and sipped at it as though it was the only task she had assigned to her in the world.

They didn't speak about Narcissa Malfoy after that. Not about Draco, nor the efforts of the VLF, nor the new case that Hermione's firm had been landed with and she was clearly reluctant to become enthusiastic for. She didn't need – didn't _want_ – to talk of such things. That much was apparent. As the evening drifted into night, conversation ebbed and flowed in every direction but it held little depth. Nothing painful.

Harry allowed the subjects to be discarded, just as Hermione had silently requested. He wasn't much for talking, not anymore – or was it not ever? Maybe not ever – but he made the effort. It was a distraction, as much for himself as for Hermione. He had a responsibility to her, but even if he didn't, he would make the effort.

Mention of Narcissa Malfoy's death wasn't forgotten, but for a time it was put to the side.

* * *

Barely hours later, duty came knocking on Harry's door.

It arrived with a touch on his face. The graze of chilled fingers across his cheek. The whisper of a breath that had stopped when the body died.

Harry was awake and blinking groggily before he fully registered what it was. His hand was fumbling for his glasses on the nightstand as he did so, head craning towards the owner of that touch. "Who…?"

She spoke before Harry saw him. Before he even saw who she was. With the barest of whispers, her plea seemed to swallow the room. "You have to help me. Please, save my son."

She was speaking? He could hear her? "Who…?" Pushing himself upright, Harry felt his eyes widen as he caught sight of the woman standing rigidly alongside his bed, barely visible through the night.

"Please," Narcissa Malfoy said, her whisper stained. "Please save Draco."

* * *

A/N: Thank you to all of the absolutely wonderful people who read and reviewed last chapter! You're all legends, and I can't thank you enough!


	3. Chapter 3 - A Lurching Step

**Chapter 3: A Lurching Leap**

Harry ran.

He wasn't used to running. He spent more time immobile, lost in thought or talking to dead people, than in any kind of physical activity. The distance… it was far. Far enough that Apparition would have been more convenient.

A shame Harry could no longer Apparate.

Gasping, heart thundering in his chest and legs protesting with every step, Harry ran through the darkness of night-swathed London. It wasn't silent, was far from quiet, but he was alone as he ran. Or mostly alone.

"Please," Narcissa Malfoy whispered as she kept pace at his side with gliding strides that somehow didn't seem like running. "Please save him."

Harry didn't reply to her. He didn't spared her a glance, barely hearing the words. Not that it mattered; she'd been begging with those very words and only those words for the past hour. He simply continued to run in a direction he only knew because Narcissa directed him.

It was painful. Painful and sad. Harry hated death, hated what had become of those who visited him, but it was worse when it was someone he knew. Even if that someone had once been an enemy, it was worse. Death had no considerations, made no exceptions, for those who had been on the opposing side of the war. Harry ached that Narcissa had died – and he was determined that, for all of his flaws and all of their school rivalry, Malfoy wouldn't follow her.

That Narcissa could speak to him meant something. Surely it meant something.

Winding through the streets, passing through Muggle London and then beyond into the quieter, sedater Wizarding region, Harry followed. His legs were fading to numbness by the time Narcissa turned sharply down a wide street of immense houses looming behind sprawling grounds and iron-wrought gates. The shadows of the night made those gates taller, the smooth, walls that stretched alongside them even more impregnable.

Harry didn't slow. He didn't stop until Narcissa glided to a halt before one such gate.

There was no time for upwelling memories. No time to recall the one instance Harry had visited Malfoy Manor in the past – _snatchers; frantic desperation; a basement, dark and cold and trapped –_ nor to even consider hesitating. Still gasping, Harry all but stumbled up to the gate and grasped the rungs. It was as much to hold himself on his feet as the give them an experimental tug.

Locked. Of course they were.

Swiping the back of his hand across his sweaty forehead, Harry spared Narcissa a glance. "How?" he asked, his breath still short. Smoke puffed out with each huff. "How – do I – get in?"

Narcissa was a regal woman. She was composed in every newspaper article and every photoshoot. Or she had been, for no longer. Her expression was taut, her face pale with more than her death, and her eyes were desperate. "Please," was all she said.

"I know. I am. But how –?"

"Please. Help him."

"How can I -?"

" _Please_."

There was no reasoning with the dead. Most of the time, they were so focused upon their needs that any intelligence was otherwise abandoned. Only Lily, only James and Padfoot and Fred, seemed to possess any kind of reason.

Narcissa didn't. She was broken, desperate, and the hand she reached towards the house beyond the looming gates seemed to reach for her son.

What had happened? Why did he need help? Harry didn't know, but whatever it was, Narcissa was clearly all but frantic. That in itself was reason enough to make haste. Maybe Hermione was right. Maybe Narcissa had been murdered. And maybe… maybe whoever had killed her had shifted their sights to Malfoy.

The thought had been fluttering on the edges of Harry's mind throughout his flight, and it rose to the fore as his breathing eased. He squinted at the distant shape of the manor. A long, winding path led from the gates to the imposing front doors, hedges lining the cobbles like sentinels and the manor itself a taunting king presiding over his holdings. Harry swallowed, hands tightening on the iron bars of the gate.

 _Malfoy's in there somewhere. And he needs help. But I can't_ …

The gates were locked. Even if it had been only with a simple locking charm rather than something stronger, Harry wouldn't be capable of unlocking it himself. His magic rarely worked for such things anymore. There was no way in, Harry could do nothing, and even with Narcissa's desperation –

 _"Please_ ," she whisper-begged him again.

Harry was climbing before he actively knew he was doing so. That voice, those words, so reminiscent of the silent pleas of countless other dead and would-be visitors, clawed at his mind and squeezed his chest until he _had_ to do something. Anything. It was only with half a mind, scrambling and hauling himself up the gate, that Harry considered the possibility that warding might make such an entrance impossible.

Or he considered and then discarded notion as he swung himself over the spiked lip. A prong speared his thigh, another catching on the meaty part of his palm, but he hardly noticed. The wards – for they had surely existed – were down. Because Narcissa had died? Possibly. Probably. The idea that Malfoy might be in danger, may be even more vulnerable to being attacked, grew with every moment.

Narcissa was at Harry's side when he all but collapsed to the footpath beyond. He didn't know how, if she'd climbed alongside him or simply swept through the gate like the ghost-like presence she was. Not that it mattered. Harry was lurching to his feet, numb legs dragging him forward. In seconds, he was running for the manor once more, the wan, smog-smothered light of the moon his only illumination in the sprawling Malfoy grounds.

The looming front doors was eerily unlocked.

The long, high-ceilinged corridors were empty.

The echoes of Harry's footsteps were deafening in the silence of the empty house.

Darkness. Stillness. Hollowness. A sense of abandon seeped from each panelled wall, from each ornate, closed door that peppered the hallway walls. Harry might have been discomforted if he'd had the moment to consider it. If he wasn't familiar with such emptiness and abandonment from Grimmauld Place, and if he didn't have a mission. A duty. Someone to protect.

Heartbeat throbbing in his temples, his breath hitching as his lungs once more, Harry stumbled behind the whispering vision of Narcissa Malfoy as she led him through her home. He didn't care that he was intruding. He didn't care at that moment that Malfoy had been his schoolyard rival, or that Narcissa meant little enough to him outside of what she was to Hermione.

Draco Malfoy was in danger, and possibly on the brink of death. Harry hated death.

It was three floors and a long, sharp-cornered corridor of wooden floors spread beneath a stretching length of rug that Narcissa finally paused. At the end of that hallway and before a door, she ground to a halt and her eyes grew desperate once more. Pale face lined with fear, not a hint of the composure she'd always worn remaining, she turned towards Harry. Her hands cling to one another, clasped to her chest.

"Please," she whispered.

Harry swallowed through his pants. He wavered for a moment as he finally, _finally_ drew to a stop at Narcissa's side. Only the need, the welling concern – not for Malfoy expressly, but for a victim of Death – withheld him from bending double and leaning on his knees in a brief respite. Instead, swaying slightly, Harry raised a hand to the dark, hardwood door before him.

"In here?" he asked.

"Please."

"Is he…?"

"You have to…" Narcissa's eyes grew impossibly wider. " _Please_."

"I got it." Harry's hand curled into a fist on the door. "I got it, I'll…"

He didn't know what he'd find on the other side of the door. A murder? Someone in the process of actually killing Malfoy? The hallway was quiet, almost too quiet, but a lot could be hidden by the thickness of a door. For all Harry knew, Malfoy could be taking his last breath even at that moment.

Harry didn't really care that he'd been trespassing upon Malfoy property, but any reluctance he may have felt vanished at the thought. He pushed the door open with a forceful thrust.

Darkness. Stillness. Hollowness. The same weight that pervaded the rest of the house sighed from the room as Harry stepped within. There was no murder in the midst of climaxing. There was no crime scene, no splatters of blood or discarded corpses. The room wasn't even particularly chaotic, with no sign that a tussle had taken place.

Harry paused on the threshold, and it wasn't what he saw that caused him to pause. It wasn't the absence of disaster, or Malfoy's dead body sprawled on the floor. Instead, what halted him like a blow to the head was the wave of death that rumbled over him.

It was thick. Cloying. A smothering, choking, overpowering scent that flooded Harry's nostrils, the discordant ringing in his ears that no one else would be able to hear, the chill that touched his skin and seeped what little warmth his body still managed to warm his fingers with. Harry felt death. It was his magic. It was all his magic was good for anymore. He felt it, and he knew that Narcissa had been right: Draco Malfoy needed saving.

Lurching into motion once more, Harry stumbled across the darkened room. He nearly tripped over the shadow of a table, bumped his hip into a desk, and stumbled again over something that felt distinctly like a shoe. Narcissa's pale form skirted around him but never past, shepherding him through the nearly impregnable darkness towards a slightly paler doorway leading to an adjacent room. The feeble light of a candle spilled from within.

There was a bed, grand and imposing, blankets in disarray and a pillow dropped to the floor. There was a nightstand, kicked away from the side of that bed as though shunted away, and a single couch sat solitary and abandoned in the corner of the room beneath a flung robe. There was little else, except…

Bottles. Bottle everywhere. They littered the floor, rolled on their sides, decorated the nightstand and cluttered around the feet of the bed. Harry didn't pause to identify the cursive writing on each label. He kicked through the mess, the resounding tinkle of those bottles cracking the deafening silence of the room, but he barely heard them. It was Malfoy at the bed, the source of that well of reeking death, that dragged at him like a fish hooked on a reel.

Oh. So that was it.

Not a murderer – or at least no more of a murderer that Malfoy was to himself. But then, that wasn't really murder, was it? That was… it was escape, and desperation, and –

"Please save him," Narcissa whispered from behind Harry, and her voice broke.

Harry didn't glance her way. He fumbled for the blankets through the darkness, dragging them aside to reveal the body sprawled beneath. The body that barely breathed, that spread limp and almost as pale as his dead mother in little more than underwear and his skin.

Harry had the impression of hair so pale it was almost white in a tousled mess, an equally pale arm flung across dark bedsheets, and the barely perceptible rise and fall of Malfoy's chest to accompany the faint gurgle of his breaths. It couldn't have just been the alcohol. Harry didn't think – didn't feel with his magic – that it was just the drink. Something else had pushed Malfoy to the brink where he teetered like a nervous penguin on the edge of an iceberg before taking the final plunge beyond.

Harry wouldn't let him. He didn't care for Malfoy. He didn't care for anyone besides Hermione, besides the Weasleys that likely didn't care much for him in return, and besides the dead who needed him. But he hated death, and more than that, he hated painful, heartbroken, _pointless_ death. So many people – so many died before their time. Harry would _not_ let someone leave before if he could help it. Not even Malfoy.

Clambering up onto the bed, the mattress ridiculously high, Harry scrambled towards where Malfoy teetered and pondered his final leap. He grasped his extended wrist, hauled him up to sitting, and sagged slightly as Malfoy slumped limply against him. He was heavy. It would be hard, next to impossible, to move him, and especially without magic. Harry was utterly useless, could do precious little to actually help Malfoy, but –

"You fucking tosser, you don't get to check out yet," he growled. "Not on my watch."

Narcissa watched. Harry could feel more than see her. He didn't spare her a glance, however, even as he readjusted his grasp on Malfoy and dragged him until his limpness was all but lying across Harry himself. He paused only long enough to glance around himself and snatch at the thin rod that he recognised as Malfoy's wand laying discarded on the nightstand. "I'll save him," he said, as much to himself as Narcissa. "I will."

Then he reached for his magic. It might not work, but he reached anyway. Harry was desperate, he sorely needed it, and accidental magic had always been stronger than that guided by a wand. In the darkness of Malfoy's room that reeked of death, alcohol,l and the bitterness of vomit on the sheets, Harry hauled at his magic and _wanted_.

They cracked with the snap of Apparition and Harry, clinging to Malfoy, dragged him from Death's door.

* * *

He should have taken Malfoy to a hospital. He knew he should have. Harry didn't have the magic to fix what was wrong, and even if he had, he hadn't the knowledge of how what spells or potions to use.

Going to hospital would have been the smart thing to do – so why had Harry instinctively retreated to Grimmauld Place?

Sitting on the floor, back against the door into the room that had once belonged to Regulus Black, Harry closed his eyes and mentally kicked himself. He couldn't help Malfoy. He didn't know how. His magic wasn't any good at all, and after the effort it had taken to Apparate, Harry wouldn't be surprised if he was unable to cast even a simple charm for weeks. Harry knew rudimentary first aid only from his brief participation in the Auror trainee program, but his knowledge had faded to minimal at best. What did he know about alcohol poisoning? How would he be able to discern whether there was something else wrong with Malfoy, if he'd taken something more?

Those thoughts and more had crashed into Harry's mind the moment he'd collapsed onto the hallway floor of Grimmauld Place beneath Malfoy's limp weight. The instinctive need to retreat, to get away from the public, from people, had likely been as much a cause for his unconscious choice of destination as any, but Harry kicked himself for it nonetheless. The hospital. Sick people. _Dying_ people were supposed to be taken to the _hospital_.

He almost left, then. Harry almost dragged Malfoy into the dining room with its marble fireplace that only Hermione used and threw what little Floo powder he kept alongside it into the hearth to journey to St. Mungo's. It would have been the smart thing to do. The logical thing. It would help Malfoy, and Harry knew that, even if he hadn't a care for Malfoy himself, he didn't want him to die. He never wanted him – or anyone – to die.

And yet he paused as he scrambled to his feet. With his arms hooked beneath Malfoy's, sagging even at the minimal weight of holding Malfoy upright, Harry paused, because Narcissa appeared beside him. Fear still touched her features, tightening her eyes and wrinkling her brow, but the desperation had faded slightly. She bent over Malfoy, fear roiling yet paradoxically easing in her expression, and reached out a hand to touch his wan, slack face. Harry knew Malfoy wouldn't have been able to feel it, but he twitched slightly nonetheless. Maybe it was coincidence, or maybe he felt it with his own magic.

Narcissa's gaze darted upwards to meet Harry's as he remained paused, suspended in the moment even as the waves of Death and Dying rolled over him, seeping from Malfoy like a tangible stench. Somehow, impossibly, she smiled slightly. "Thank you," she whispered. "Fix him? Please, can you fix him?"

It was the first words outside of her cries of 'save him' that she's spoken since Harry had first seen her. It likely shouldn't have meant as much to Harry as it did, and it could have meant something else entirely to how he interpreted it, but he'd always been a slave to the pleas of the dead. Harry's mind clicked her words into place and steadied upon a plan of action.

Not hospital. Narcissa asked _Harry_ to fix her son. Maybe she had a reason for him to do so rather than any other Healer. Maybe she really had been murdered and someone would be out to get Malfoy. Or maybe Harry was misinterpreting the situation, but…

"Kreacher," he called over his shoulder, and in seconds, with the ancient little elf doing more work than Harry was himself, they had Malfoy tucked into bed in the high reaches of the house.

Detox Brews. Blood Filters. Immunity Boosters, Mal-Eaters, and the use of _Scourgify Interium_ charms from Kreacher. More cold presses, wet towels, and tucked blankets than Harry had known the house possessed flooded the designated sickroom. For the next hour, Harry raided the potions cabinet that Hermione, bless her soul, kept dutifully stocked, and acted more the assistant to Kreacher's directions than he directed himself. He'd been almost resentful that she had seen fit to provide him with such potions once; a Detox Brew because she worried he wasn't eating properly, Blood Filters for when she'd noticed his own brief dive into drinking, and the vitamins and boosters that appeared when she realised that Detox Brews were less than necessary for one who ate precious little to begin with.

Harry wasn't resentful of the provision anymore. Not when, within the hour, the stench of death seemed to retreat slightly from Malfoy's skin. He made a mental note to thank Hermione when she next visited and hoped he had the self-awareness to actually remember such reminders.

When Kreacher's ministrations slowed, when he'd paused alongside Malfoy's bedside, regarded him for a moment, and then nodded curtly, Harry had eased just slightly. He could feel that Death was retreating, that its grasp upon Malfoy was loosening with each bout of sweating that stained the sheets and the pillow he lay upon. With a sigh, Harry stepped back from the bed, back pressing to the door, and slid to the floor. His hands curled around his knees, tucking them to his chest, and he dropped his forehead atop them in sudden weariness.

Malfoy was alive.

He was going to live.

He wouldn't die, and Harry had been a part of that. He'd helped. He'd stopped it as he'd never been able to, never had the chance to, for any of his other visitors. So often he could only help in the aftermath of a tragedy, enabling the passing of a soul so they could find their morbid peace on the other side. Never, ever had Harry been able to stop that passing in the first place.

Harry didn't like Malfoy, even if his aversive opinion of him had faded significantly since the war, but he could almost hug the man who had unwittingly given him such an opportunity. He hugged his knees tighter against himself and struggled to swallow the thickness welling in his throat.

"Master should be resting."

Blinking aside the blurriness in his eyes, Harry turned his gaze towards Kreacher. The elf, sidling away from Malfoy's bedside, peered at him intently through narrowed eyes that squinted not from distaste as they once had but in thoughtful study. He raised a gnarled finger to point at Harry. "Master has had a long night."

"I'm fine," Harry said, and hadn't even the care to wonder, as he always did, just how he'd adopted a house elf as a nanny and a best friend as a mother. "Just a little tired."

"Then Master should be sleeping. He should find his own bed and have Kreacher take care of the Malfoy brat."

Brat? Harry considered the term for a moment before disregarding it. Kreacher tended to dislike just about everyone in the world, and had progressed as far as those of purer blood in recent years. Harry shouldn't be surprised.

Shaking his head, he dropped his chin atop his knees instead. "I'm fine," he repeated. "I'm just going to sit in here. Just to make sure Malfoy's okay."

Kreacher scowled. "Master should be caring for himself before the Malfoy brat."

"I'm fine."

"Master ran a long way this night. He has been using magic, and that is not good for Master." Kreacher's finger stabbed at him once more, but somehow seemed more chiding than accusing. "Rest is what he is needing."

Harry didn't question how Kreacher knew he'd run most of the way to Malfoy's house when he couldn't encourage a taxi past the deterring wards of the Wizarding neighbourhood. He didn't ask how Kreacher knew he'd used magic either, though that was less of a mystery given it was a little hard to deceive the butler of a house when someone Apparated directly into its walls. Kreacher simply knew such things, both about Grimmauld Place and Harry himself. Harry had long ago disregarded feelings discomforted about knowledge; Kreacher had never abused it.

Shrugging, Harry settled his gaze upon Malfoy. Narcissa stood at Malfoy's bedside, watching her son unblinkingly in a way that would have been eerie and disconcerting had she been real and alive. Harry knew better. The dead didn't have such a filter upon their behaviours. "I think I'll just stay here," he said, more to himself than to Kreacher.

"Master should be –"

"I'll rest," Harry cut him off. "Not sleep, but I'll rest. I promise, Kreacher. I just… I don't think I should leave just yet."

Whether it was for Malfoy's sake or Narcissa's, Harry didn't know. He was unfamiliar with how the dead existed away from him, whether he acted as their tether or if they wandered even without his company. Fred always seemed capable of taking himself into Weasley's Wizard Wheezes without Harry's company when they actually arrived in Diagon Alley, and Lily was always in the library before Harry stepped through the door.

But they were both close to him, and their presence's were strong. Harry didn't know if Narcissa would fade into temporary oblivion if Harry stepped from the room, and he didn't want to risk it. The expression she wore as she stared at Malfoy, or love and grief and heartfelt pain alongside relief, was heartbreaking to witness. It would be impossible to bereave her of it.

Kreacher grumbled. "Dawn is approaching," he said.

"Yeah," Harry murmured in reply. "It probably is."

"Master has barely slept."

"I'll sleep later."

"Later will be daylight."

"At which point I can sleep." Harry glanced to where Kreacher regarded him with unblinking attention, his lips even more pinched in dissatisfaction than age drew them. "It's not like I've got anything else I need to be doing, Kreacher."

Kreacher grumbled again, something beneath his breath about 'not healthy' and 'should not be doing such things' that invoked thoughts of unexpected nannies and overprotective parents once more. Harry found himself smiling slightly. "Thanks, Kreacher. For everything. Maybe I can come down and get some breakfast a little later?"

Instant placation wasn't possible, and Harry doubted Kreacher was ever truly content, but his disgruntlement seemed to lessen with Harry's words. _Small victories_ , Harry thought as Kreacher drew himself up slightly and nodded. "Of course. Master will be having breakfast that Kreacher is making, and he will be feeling better for it even if he hasn't been sleeping."

"Most likely," Harry said.

"Kreacher will be brewing tea. And coffee."

"Sounds good."

"And making a banquet of eggs and bacon and racks of toast and beans and –"

"I don't think that's really necessary," Harry said. "There's only one of me. Or," he drew his gaze back towards Malfoy, "maybe two."

Kreacher left after that, but Harry hadn't turned away from his staring. He watched Narcissa watch Malfoy, and his arms tightened further around his legs as he hugged himself. It was melancholically beautiful, like a scene from a painting that couldn't ever be brought to actualisation. Narcissa didn't move, and Harry didn't know what she was waiting for, but he didn't question her. He didn't ask her why she remained. Harry would, and always did, abide by the wishes of the dead.

So instead of asking, he watched Malfoy too. He watched as the grey light of pre-dawn faded into darkness before slowly brightening once more, creeping through the partial opening of the drapes that curtained the window. Harry watched, and his curiosity itched and grew.

In his mound of blankets, Malfoy was a mess. It wasn't just that his usual image – or at least the image that Harry had of him from their schooling days – was skewed. Malfoy had always been tall and thin, but he was definitely thinner than he had been. Even with what little Harry could make out of him given he was cocooned in blankets, that much apparent. Malfoy's cheeks were hollow, his chin even more angular, and the sharpness of his cheekbones were only emphasised by the dark smears beneath his eyes. His face was grey, his hair mussed and lifeless. He looked… worn.

And he still reeked of death. It wasn't as heavy as Harry had experienced it before, not as pervasive and demanding of attention in its immediacy, but he could still smell it. It tasted of illness. It bespoke long affliction. Such disrepair wasn't a product of whatever Malfoy had dosed himself with the previous night; what was wrong with him, what stained him with death, had nestled in him for a long time.

And Harry didn't like it. Even if it was Malfoy, and beyond that, even if it was someone that he had no reason to care for, Harry didn't like it. Death shouldn't cling to people like that. Not before their time.

For long minutes, Harry sat in silence, watching as Narcissa too watched and Malfoy slept in utter stillness. It was uncomfortable on the hard floor, but Harry didn't mind. It was cold in the room, too, but he was used to being cold. Time ticked, they waited, and Harry lost track of any attempts at counting the hours. It could have been creeping to evening as easily as it could have been an hour past sunrise by the time something changed.

Malfoy breathed a little more deeply. Narcissa sighed a breath that she no longer needed and straightened. In an instant, Harry was jarred back into the present, swimming into awareness. He blinked from his watchful stupor just as Narcissa turned towards him.

"He will be alright," she whispered, and there was a smoothness and composure to her voice that reminded Harry of the woman she'd been before she'd died. The woman he'd barely known. Her expression had similarly smoothed, and she appeared almost serene.

"Will he?" Harry asked, brushing aside the momentary surprise that she was talking to him properly words. Few enough of his visitors seemed capable of doing so.

Narcissa nodded. "This time."

"This time?" Harry pursed his lips. "That's not exactly reassuring."

"But you will help him." Narcissa glanced towards Malfoy, then back to Harry. Her serenity crumpled briefly. "You will help him?"

The question. The plea. Harry was always weak to it. Closing his eyes briefly, he nodded. "Yes. I will. Of course I will, if you want me to."

Narcissa's smile was slow and small. "Thank you."

"It's fine."

"Sincerely."

"It's really nothing." Harry lowered his gaze to the toes of his scruffy trainers. "If I can help you to, you know, pass or whatever, then I'll do it."

"You're a good person," Narcissa whispered.

The thickness returned to Harry's throat. "I don't know about that. I'm just… trying."

"Most people wouldn't."

"Most people aren't woken by dead people every other night."

"Yes." Narcissa sighed again. "I am sorry for that. I regret that I had to approach you in such a manner, as I'm sure that so many have, but the pull and the unspoken possibility I felt –"

"You don't need to apologise," Harry said hastily, glancing up at her with a plea of his own. He didn't want to hear it; not the apology or the explanation. Harry didn't want to know why _he_ was the one the dead approached. Such things were better left unknown. "You really don't. I don't mind."

Narcissa watched him, frowning thoughtfully. "Even with who we are?"

"Who you are?"

"Myself. And Draco." She gestured to her son where he huffed a breath and shifted in his sleep as though briefly aware of their attention. "We did you great wrong in the past."

Harry lowered his gaze once more. "That was years ago."

"Many people have long memories. Particularly with the weight of the war upon their shoulders."

Harry shrugged his own, as if to prove otherwise. "Not me. I don't care about that, really. Not anymore."

"Then you truly are a good person."

"You make me sound like I'm a –"

"Who are you talking to?"

In an instant, Harry snapped his gaze upwards. His attention swung from Narcissa, who had similarly turned, towards Malfoy where he still lay unmoving in Regulus' old double bed. His eyes were open barely a crack, and his voice was hoarse, but he watched Harry sidelong as though he were a rabid dog.

Harry dismissed the question, and not only because he didn't think Malfoy would like the answer. Instead, using the door behind him as an aid, he hitched himself to his feet once more. "You're awake."

Malfoy blinked. His brow crinkled. He blinked again, then squinted at Harry. "Potter?" he croaked.

"Mm."

"You're… what?"

Harry took a small step towards his bed. "I picked you up last night."

"Last night…"

"You were –" Harry cut himself off, bit his lip, then continued. "You were dying, Malfoy. Did you know that?"

Malfoy watched him, and the wariness, what was almost repulsion in his gaze, remained suspended for a moment longer. Then his objection seemed to fade and, with a sigh, he closed his eyes. How, with only his head visible above his blankets, he managed to shrink and become so much smaller with just a sound, Harry didn't know. It was enough to draw him fully to his bedside, however.

"Did you know?" Harry asked again. Quietly. So quietly, and hyperaware of Narcissa watching silently from the other side of the bed.

Malfoy swallowed audibly. "Yes," he whispered, just as hoarsely as before.

"You –" Harry's teeth almost hurt as they bit into his lip. "You tried to kill yourself?"

Another swallow. "I –"

"Malfoy, tell me you didn't."

"I…"

"How could you do that? How could you, to your mother after she'd just -?"

Malfoy's eyes snapped wide open. He was weak, thin, and so sickly pale he appeared more of a ghost than Narcissa did. But he glared at Harry as though the weight of his gaze could kill. "Don't you dare, Potter," he growled, the scratchiness of his voice catching upon his words. "Don't you dare."

Harry stared at him, and remorse did rise. Only briefly, however, for a glance towards Narcissa vanquished the thought. She was visibly heartbroken, and though Harry didn't know if the dead could even cry, he thought she would manage.

Folding his arms, Harry met Malfoy's glare with his own. "No. Don't _you_ dare. I always knew you were selfish, Malfoy, but this?"

Malfoy hissed. "You don't know anything."

"Don't you think this would hurt her?"

"Shut up, Potter."

"She _just died_ , and you think she would be okay with you – what, were you trying to drown yourself in alcohol? Was that it? Or did you take something else with it?"

"You don't know _anything_ , Potter," Draco snapped, voice breaking from its hoarseness. With a lurch, he pushed himself up to sitting, his bare arms trembling slightly as they propped him up and the blankets flopping around his waist. His whole body was trembling, for that matter, though seemed more for the sudden rage that managed to put a spot of colour in his cheeks than anything else. "You don't know what it's like. Don't you dare presume that you know how it feels to lose – how it is when you –"

He cut himself off, and Harry couldn't help but notice the upwelling of fierce tears in Malfoy's eyes. He'd seen Malfoy cry before, but not like this. Not with such misery and pain and anger.

For a moment, Harry didn't speak. He was silenced, and not from his own anger. The fold of his arms across his chest became more of an embrace of himself, a means to hold in the sadness that seemed to be spilling out of him.

No. He didn't know. Harry didn't know what it was like to lose a mother, because though he had, he couldn't remember it. He couldn't remember a life with Lily, so having lost it meant little. It still hurt, but not as it would for Malfoy.

Harry wouldn't know that pain. _Didn't_ know it. He couldn't even imagine what kind of misery would drive someone to try to kill themselves as a result. That level of pain… Harry was horrified by death, felt little but repulsion and heartfelt sadness at the thought of someone taking their own life, but he didn't think it was inconceivable. Maybe for himself, who knew the feeling of death on an intimate level, but he fathomed that for some, the kind of emptiness that would drive seeking a means for it all to just stop…

Harry understood that much.

And yet, at the same time, he knew those who had died. He'd watched as those who stood with one foot on the other side sighed longingly at those they'd left behind. He knew the pain and the heartache, the desperation that had them clinging to the last dregs of life in a feeble effort to pass one last goodbye on to those they loved. He'd seen the heartache in Fred's face when he saw his brother couldn't move on. He'd seen countless mothers, brothers, children, friends, as they passed through the veil with the reluctant cries for those they'd left behind.

And Harry saw Narcissa as she watched Malfoy, gazing upon her son as his hands scrunched in the bedsheets and he struggled to catch his breath and compose himself. Harry saw Narcissa, beheld her pain at the thought of what her son had so nearly done, and he observed that the dead could indeed cry.

It was one of the most horrible sights Harry had ever witnessed.

"No," he said lowly, slowly turning back towards Malfoy. "No, I don't know what that's like. But I know it isn't what your mother would have wanted, Malfoy, so I'll do my damnedest to make sure you don't bloody well follow her."

Malfoy stared up at Harry. His eyes widened briefly, then narrowed. His mouth opened, then closed as he clenched his teeth and all but hissed.

But Harry didn't care. He couldn't bring himself to consider that he might be hurting Malfoy, might be acting against his will in preserving his life. He had a mind only for Narcissa as she sighed in a hitch of her breath, her tears dribbling down her cheeks, and turned a watery smile upon him.

"Thank you," she whispered, her eyes closing. "Thank you for saving him."

Then she faded. Not like Fred did, where he blinked out of existence. Not like Lily, or the girl with the puppy had but days before. Like fog clearing before sunlight, Narcissa Malfoy faded, and Harry knew she was gone for good.

But her departure didn't change anything. It didn't change that Harry had made a promise with his words, even if Malfoy's glare and hitched breaths bespoke nothing short of objection to the notion. Harry had made a promise, and he'd always cared more for the pleas of the dead than the living.

He would make sure Malfoy survived his mother's death. That much Harry swore.

* * *

A/N: Thank you so, so much to the absolutely lovely reviewers! **Princess, Arodoet,** and **delia cerrano** \- you guys are so wonderful! It's the best thing ever to see familiar faces - or profiles, whichever you'd prefer.  
Hope you enjoyed the chapter and I'll see you next time!


	4. Chapter 4 - Pause In Step

A/N: Firstly, I am SO SORRY that this has taken so long to update! Real life threw me through the ringer, and editing 10K, even poorly editing, takes a long time. Thank you for sticking by me long enough for another update.

Secondly, pertaining to this chapter: once more, please be aware of the tags in chapter 1. This chapter deals heavily with the notion of suicide, as well as varying approaches and perspectives of it. Please not that just because my characters may think or act in a certain way, doesn't mean that I do myself. Seriously. Don't hate me.

Thanks, and enjoy the chapter!

* * *

 **Chapter 4: Pause In Step**

The ticking of the ancient clock in the basement kitchen was discordant company that Harry had long ago grown accustomed to. Ron had called it annoying when he'd still visited. Hermione always sighed when it stuttered over the occasional flick.

But Harry didn't mind. It was better than sitting in silence, which was how he would have been otherwise for the past three hours. It wasn't until dinnertime neared – or dinnertime by Kreacher's clock – that his isolation found a reprieve.

When the clock struck six, chiming in a whining, hollow, faintly sickly clatter, Harry closed his eyes. He didn't otherwise move from how he'd been sitting for those three hours, his legs drawn up before him to his chest to prop against the table, and slumping in his chair. His heads fell forwards to rest upon his knees.

"I was hoping you'd come," he said his voice muffled against his legs. "I'm a little tired of having dinner alone while someone sits upstairs in their bedroom and refuses to come out."

For a moment, there was no reply. Then, finally, in a whisper, "Sorry it took me so long."

Harry sighed. He couldn't really pin the blame upon anyone for leaving him alone. He couldn't blame Malfoy for sitting up in Regulus' bedroom for the past three days and barely uttering a word but to snarl at Harry should he glance through the doorway. He barely seemed to have moved from the bed as far as Harry could discern.

Kreacher brought him food, then grumbled when he fetched it hours later all but completely untouched. Harry never saw Malfoy in the hallways on the few occasions he passed down them himself. The infrequent sound of water gushing as the lavatory was used was one of the few indicators that another person dwelled in Grimmauld Place at all.

Harry wasn't complaining. Not really. He'd grown to appreciate isolation, because with the dead dropping in on him with their requests, it was easier to be alone. He'd always been comfortable with quietness, with silences, and a childhood without company had left him less that uneasy when such isolation persisted for days on end.

Even so, Harry felt guilty. He itched with it. He'd promised Narcissa that he would save Malfoy, and he intended to keep his promise. He just wasn't sure that stopping him from dying was quite the same thing as ensuring he lived.

 _At least he hasn't left yet,_ Harry thought to himself for the hundredth time in the past half a week. That much he was thankful for. Harry had left the house all of twice times – to visit a graveyard for an anniversary as he'd promised an old man years ago, and once in the company of a silent, unfamiliar visitor. Malfoy hadn't left in his absence.

Yet.

Somehow, it only felt like a matter of time. After they'd spoken on the matter, that first day after Harry had declared his promise to Malfoy's mother, Harry was surprised it hadn't happened sooner. With his reaction to Harry's decisiveness, it wouldn't have been a surprise.

"I'll do my damnedest to make sure you don't bloody well follow her," he told Malfoy days before.

Malfoy stared up at him. He was still shaking, likely from the weakness of his limbs after the intensive cleansing the potions had forced his body through. His eyes were hollow, though they glared with hateful intensity. His lips pressed together so firmly that they nearly disappeared upon themselves, and hands curled so tightly into the bed sheets that his knucklebones seemed about to pierce through his skin.

"That's not for you to decide," Malfoy said after a long, long moment.

"Well, it's not for you to decide either," Harry replied.

"It's my life."

"And your mother did her best to protect it."

Malfoy flinched. The reaction was so violent that his entire body twitched. His face paled impossibly further, and though he still glared, there was another weight behind that glare. Another force. To Harry's eyes, he looked all but on the verge of tears.

Malfoy in tears wasn't something Harry could deal with. He couldn't deal with _anyone_ in tears, but Malfoy he had even less of a clue about. So he said nothing, waited, and continued to stand with arms folded as much in self-defence as defiance.

"You know nothing of my mother," Malfoy said lowly, his voice fierce despite its crackling. "And you know nothing about me."

"No," Harry agreed. "I don't."

"You don't know what I've lived through."

"No."

"You can't possibly imagine why I… why I need to… why I _can't_ –"

"No," Harry said once more. "I can't. But that doesn't matter, because I promised your mother I wouldn't let you die, and I intend to keep that promise."

For a moment, Malfoy froze. Then, slowly, his eyes widened until they seemed to all but pop out of his face. His lips parted in a wavering gasp. "What… did you just…?"

Harry didn't want to explain it to him. He didn't want to attempt to explain that he saw the dead who hadn't yet passed, that he fulfilled the wishes of those that were no longer capable of doing so for themselves. It was too much complexity, and he didn't owe that to Malfoy. Not yet, and maybe not ever. He didn't care for _Malfoy_ , after all. It was Narcissa he'd made the promise to. He always clung to his promises to the dead.

"You don't have anyone staying with you at your house, right?" Harry asked, speaking into Malfoy's gasping silence. "Not anymore."

Malfoy just stared at him, unblinking and still shaking. He looked even taller for how thin he was, even sitting down and hunched as he was, but somehow seemed little more than a child in the mess of sheets. Harry took a step backwards; he didn't like to be stared at with such stark terror. "You can stay here until –" he paused, then shrugged in a hitch of his shoulder's that didn't quite drop back down from their hunching. "I don't know. Just stay here so I'll know you're alright."

Then Harry turned and left him.

He'd imposed upon Malfoy as little over the past days as possible. The first time, Malfoy had just stared at him, and Harry had retreated with barely a word to ask if he was alright. He wasn't. Malfoy clearly wasn't 'okay' at all, and Harry didn't know what to do about it. He didn't know how to care beyond ensuring Malfoy remained alive. This quiet Malfoy, this stunned version of him, was disconcerting. They'd always exchanged with verbal blows up until the end of the war, and after that… Though everything had changed, they certainly weren't friends. Not by any stretch.

It was disconcerting. Harry didn't think he'd know what to do should anyone be in such a state in his care, least of all Malfoy.

Thankfully, the second visit that afternoon found that Malfoy's wide-eyed horror had been replaced by a glare once more. He didn't speak, but it was better that the stunned silence. And probably better than the third visit when he actually had spoken.

"What do you want, Potter?" Malfoy all but growled.

Pausing just outside the doorway, fingers curling around the frame, Harry shifted awkwardly. "I'm just checking you're okay," he said with as little imposition in his tone as he could manage.

Malfoy's lip curled. "Your bloody elf makes sure of that. Leave me alone."

"I said I'm just checking. You nearly died."

"Shut up."

"It's my job to check. I promised."

"Shut _up_."

"And I'll continue to make sure you don't do anything that your mother wouldn't want –"

"I said, shut the fuck _up_ , Potter." In a childish fit, Malfoy picked up one of his pillows and flung it across the room towards Harry. It fell short, flopping to the floor like a discarded ragdoll, but Malfoy didn't seem to care. He glared at Harry, and though it wasn't with horror, there was a film of tears to his eyes.

Harry couldn't deal with that. He dealt with the dead, those that were _leaving_ ; he didn't know how to handle someone who'd been left behind. And Narcissa wasn't coming back for him to ask her what to do, either; Harry knew the difference between the kind of leaving that Narcissa had taken and that of his mother, of Fred, of his visitor from the previous evening that had left in a mournful flicker like a candle snuffed.

So Harry left Draco in his room. He didn't visit anymore after that, and Kreacher kept him updated. Harry didn't know where to turn next – which was why he sat down in the basement kitchen at dinnertime as he so rarely had the presence of time to remember, and he waited.

Not always, but sometimes, the visitors he needed appeared to keep him company. That day happened to be a lucky one.

"You're looking particularly enthusiastic today."

Raising his forehead from his knees, Harry blinked at the image of his father seated at the table across from him. He didn't always come, not every time Harry ventured into the kitchen, and sometimes not even every month. James visited less often than Lily did, and it was always to appear in the kitchen. Harry didn't know why, but figured it was the same reason that Lily always appeared in the library, or Fred upon the bottom step of the stairwell.

James had said he'd always loved big family dinners. He'd told Harry that much in an offhanded offering of information that Harry accepted like a gifted nugget of golden information. Maybe that was why he chose it as his abode.

Smiling slightly, Harry shrugged a shoulder. "Not much to be enthusiastic about."

James chuckled in that hushed voice that all visitors who managed speech possessed. His chin was propped on a hand, elbow resting upon the table and his pose was relaxed and casual. He looked comfortable, somehow swaggering in a way that Harry would never have been able to manage himself. They were different, Harry had grown to learn from their brief moments together. Different even if they looked alike, which Harry had only realised upon seeing his father was less than most people realised.

The eyes were different. And Harry's hair not quite as scruffy. He wasn't as tall as his father, either, and his skin was paler, though from lack of sunlight or pigment Harry didn't know. He found such discoveries both saddening and thrilling; that he wasn't as reminiscent of James was a reality that fell like a blow, but that he'd discovered it? It was wonderful to simply _know._

"What's on your mind?" James asked.

Harry absently bit into his bottom lip. "I have a guest."

"A visitor?"

Harry shook his head; for whatever reason, his parents – and everyone else for that matter – seemed to have picked up on Harry's differentiation of terms. He didn't know how, since he'd never expressly explained it, but they did. There was a visitor and a _visitor._ "An actual guest," he clarified.

James tipped his head where it rested on his hand, cocking it sideways. "You don't seem too enthusiastic about that, either."

"I'm not, really."

"Not a good kind of guest?"

"It's Draco Malfoy."

James' face scrunched and his tongue protruded in distaste. It was such a childish expression that Harry was made starkly aware for the hundredth time just how young his parents had been when they'd died. It hurt just a little, that reminder; hurt like a shard of something sharp spearing into his chest.

"Well, anyone with the Malfoy name has to be a problem," James said.

Once, Harry would have agreed immediately. Not anymore, however. Not since his opinion had changed, for how could it not after being visited by Narcissa? Instead, he shook his head. "It's not that. It's just that Malfoy is…"

"What?" James prompted after a beat.

"He, um…" Harry gnawed on his lip. "His mother asked me to help him."

James blinked. His head cocked in the other direction. "Did she, now?"

"Yeah. She died, and then she asked me."

James fell silent at that. A slight frown grew on his brow, and Harry knew the nature of it. He wondered if, had Narcissa been alive and asked for the same kind of assistance, he would have been as inclined to offer it. But this was different. Visitors were different, and not only because James' hallucination or ghost or whatever he was had enough self-awareness to relate.

Slowly, James nodded. "Alright, then. So you're going to try?"

Harry had never met his father. He regretted it in moments like these, when he seemed to immediately understand him. "Yeah," he said, his voice small. "I think I have to."

"You always have a choice."

"I know," Harry said. "And I choose to always help and keep my promises to my visitors."

James' smile was small and sad. "That's very brave," he whisper-spoke.

"Brave?" Harry shook his head. "I think maybe it's just, I don't know, compulsive or something."

"Or brave."

"Or desperate."

"Courageous."

Harry smiled slightly himself. It ached his cheeks just a little. "Are you trying to make me feel better about myself?"

James' smile widened. "Depends. Is it working?"

"Maybe a little bit, even if it's not true."

James straightened. He leant across the table just enough to touch a finger to the back of Harry's hand. It was cool, almost intangible, just as every touch from a visitor was, but Harry didn't mind. He'd grown to quite like that coldness. "What's really the problem, Harry?"

Gaze resting upon their hands, Harry turned his own over so that his fingers curled around his father's. They weren't actually touching, he knew, even if Harry felt it. James couldn't _really_ touch him, just as days before the puppy girl had led but not really dragged him, or how Fred would tap him on the shoulder but never truly connect. How his mother always made a point of stroking his cheek but the caress never really made contact. If Harry pretended, though, if he allowed himself to be led, or leant into that caress, or curled his fingers around James', then it almost felt real. Almost.

"Malfoy tried to kill himself," he said, his voice nearly as quietly as his father's. "And I think he still probably wants to. I don't know what to do about that."

James' fingers paused where they'd been twisting around Harry's. "You know that?"

"I found him practically dead."

"Do you know why?"

Harry shrugged. He could speculate that it had a whole heap to do with the tragedy that was his mother's death, but he didn't think that was the whole of it. Malfoy looked sick. He looked like he'd been sick for a long time. Maybe there was something else going on that Harry wasn't aware of.

"His mum just died, but I think it might be something more than that. I think –" Harry paused, frowned down at the table, and flickered his gaze up to James'. "Depressed people try to kill themselves, don't they? Or… I mean, sometimes. That can happen, right?"

Any of the childishness James had worn faded from his face as he sighed and seemed to rest his chin more heavily onto his palm. He regarded Harry with sad eyes that held the wisdom of the years he hadn't lived. "You think he might be suffering from something more than just his mother? Something not wholly physical?"

Harry didn't know. Of course he wasn't sure. He knew precious little about depression but that it was 'a thing'. Hermione had brought it up years ago when Harry had first begun isolating himself.

"This is one of the signs that doctors say to look out for," she'd insisted, brandishing a book as though it were the bible and she a stalwart preacher. Harry couldn't even make out the title for how aggressively she waved it. "It worries me, Harry. Depression is a serious illness."

"I believe you," Harry had replied, because he did. He believed Hermione on most things, even if he was at times sceptical as to their relevance. "But I really don't think –"

"You have to be careful," Hermione had overridden him. " _We_ have to be careful. I don't want –" her voice had caught and she'd abruptly been on the verge of tears. "I don't want something to happen to you."

That had been shortly after the Weasley's had taken a giant step away from Harry. Hermione had been one of the only people that still remained firmly in Harry's life. He would have loved her for that, even if he didn't already for everything else she was to him. Her fear had driven her to establish her scheduled visits and then some. Harry had let her have it because she seemed to need it as much as she believed Harry did himself.

Harry wasn't sure he was depressed. He didn't think he really knew what that meant. Sad? Melancholic? Listless? Suicidal, even? They were words he'd heard associated but knew little more than that about.

Malfoy, though. Malfoy seemed to fit those words. And after how Harry had found him at the manor…

"I don't know," Harry said, finally drawing himself from his thoughts to glance up at his father. "I don't know if he's depressed, or whatever it is goes further than Narcissa dying. I don't… I just don't know." He sighed. "All I know is that he tried to kill himself, and I can't let him do it again. I promised Narcissa."

"Even if he wants to?"

James' words drew Harry up short. He stared at his father, felt his mouth flop open, and something in his expression must have shaken James with the realisation of Harry's horror, for he immediately adopted an apologetic expression. "Sorry."

"Why… would you say that?" Harry asked. His voice was strangled.

James' expression sagged, growing so solemn that, for a moment, Harry wondered if he'd spoken as he had from experience. The thought hurt so badly that Harry nearly curled in upon himself, shrinking from the possibility. Death always accompanied him, but it never affected him. Not directly. It swirled around him as constant as the air he breathed, but he never forgot its presence like he did the air. Death was merciless. It took and didn't give in return. It was… it wasn't…

"For some people, it seems like the only option," James said, his whispered words seeping into the mess Harry's mind had abruptly become. "For some people, it's an escape."

"Escape," Harry said harshly, his hands curling upon his father's fingers that weren't really there but he felt nonetheless. "How is _death_ –?"

"Better than life?" James shrugged, but there was nothing nonchalant about the gesture. "I don't know, Harry. I've never thought that way myself."

His words hurt all the more for the fact that he was already dead. More, because Harry knew he understood he was dead, too. All of his visitors were. If he'd been able to, Harry would have clutched his father's hand all the more tightly. "Then how do you know that?" he murmured, peering up at James through his bangs.

James smiled sadly. He seemed to contemplate for a moment before speaking. "Did you know Remus struggled with depression? In his younger years. Or at least, after a long time, that was what we realised it was."

A shiver dribbled down Harry's spine. His legs drew tighter to his chest almost without his meaning them to. "I didn't know that."

"Yeah. Well." James sighed, raising a hand to scratch the back of his head. "He didn't really want anyone to know about it. I suppose he was ashamed or something."

"Why?" Harry asked slowly.

"Different times, Harry. And different people. Mental illness isn't exactly accepted with open arms these days, but it's sure as hell a lot more than it was when we were kids."

A lump formed in Harry's throat, and he dropped his gaze to his knees, eyes training upon a fraying hole in the denim of his jeans. He'd never known that of Remus. He'd never suspected. More than that, it had never crossed his mind to ask.

 _But, in hindsight, maybe it makes sense._ Harry squeezed his eyes closed. He didn't know all that much of depression but yes, maybe it did.

"I never knew," Harry whispered, his words hitching.

"I wouldn't expect you to," James said. His voice was kind, soft and gentle enough that Harry glanced instinctively towards him. He was still smiling sadly, and his hand was still outstretched on the table between them, despite that Harry could barely feel it in his own. "Remus was a private person. He didn't want people knowing about his… problems."

"Like his lycanthropy," Harry said.

James nodded. "That too. He was a pickle in a jar of secrecy, Remus was. He'd been landed with a hard lot in life, and his lycanthropy? His depression? Couldn't have been much worse for him."

"I didn't…" Harry trailed off, cutting himself off before he stuttered out a repeat of his ashamed words. He swallowed, though it didn't do much good in clearing his throat. "Did Lupin ever try to…?"

James expression grew thoughtful. He frowned slightly, gaze rising absently to the distant wall. "I don't know if he ever tried, but I think he mentioned it. I remember once, after Christmas in fourth year. He had to go home for the break, and when he came back it was… worse than usual. He talked about leaving quite a few times after that. I didn't realise for a long time that he wasn't referring to dropping out of school."

Harry squeezed his eyes closed again. He hated it. Hated, hated, _hated_ it. Not only that it was Lupin they spoke of, but that it had happened at all. That such a thought and way of thinking existed. Death was merciless, was greedy, and took so much from so many people. How could it be even crueller in encouraging people to want to give what it would already eventually take?

"I suppose there's a certain kind of liberty, a release to be found, knowing that even if no other choices exist to you, you carry the weight of your own life."

Harry's heart pained in his chest, but he opened his eyes. When he did, it was to meet James' sadly sympathetic gaze once more, though his attention was upon Harry rather than the retrospective memory of Lupin. "Don't be upset, Harry."

"How can I not be?" Harry said. "How can I not when it – when all of it –" His voice hitched again and, unexpectedly, blurriness flooded his gaze. He blinked it rapidly aside. "It's horrible. People shouldn't want to die."

"And yet they do," James said simply. "Some of them. Sometimes."

"That's just so…"

Sad. Horrifying. Terrifying, even, that such a thought should be longingly pursued. Heartbreaking, too, and not only for a life willingly lost but for those left behind. Harry had offered his own life as a sacrifice once, and he would have willingly left those he loved behind if it was required of him. He would even do so again, in a heartbeat. But otherwise? For sadness? For escape?

Harry couldn't imagine that. It would be a tragedy.

"It doesn't matter if we can't comprehend it," James said as though he'd read Harry's mind. "It isn't our job to understand the why. Whether it's for escape, or seeking an end to the pain, or just to find an end to what feels meaningless –"

"It shouldn't end in death," Harry whispered, shaking his head slowly. God, but it hurt to even consider. Suicide, to long for such a thing… he'd never even contemplated that. He wasn't sure he wanted to. "There should be another option. People shouldn't just –"

"Exactly," James said, cutting Harry off in turn. He smiled, a small smile, and it somehow seemed proud. "There should be another option. And while it's not our job to understand the whys, we, as family and friends and – as the case may be – carers dragged into the situation by an unwitting promise," James paused and widened his eyes at Harry pointedly, and it took Harry a moment to realise just why.

 _Right,_ he thought slowly, thickly, as though wading through his tangible horror to understanding. _We were talking about Malfoy at first_.

James nodded as he apparently perceived Harry's understanding. "It's our job to catch them before they fall too far and help them to climb back up again. Got it?"

Harry wasn't sure he did. In the emptiness of the basement kitchen – the _true_ emptiness, for though Harry knew his father was at his side he also understood that he was alone – Harry pondered James' words. He didn't like Malfoy, it was true. He'd made a promise, and that promise had been to Narcissa, not Malfoy. But the thought that Malfoy might want to die, might actually _want_ it…

Harry wasn't sure he could abide that. Not from anyone. He would be prepared to plant himself in Malfoy's way should he try once more. Harry was sure he'd do so for just about anyone.

When James finally left, snuffing into non-existence, the kitchen felt truly empty. Harry felt cold in a way that his constant coldness, the chill of Death's company, never quite left him. He shivered in his own skin, shrinking upon himself as he wrapped his arms around his knees, but it was with a touch of resolution rather than loss.

Harry didn't climb the stairs to Regulus' room after that. He didn't think Malfoy would receive his company any better that day then he had before. He did, however, request that Kreacher keep a closer eye on him. Just in case.

Harry had barely considered it before, but visiting a hospital was beginning to sound like a very good idea.

* * *

Traffic only occasionally trickled down Grimmauld Place. That in itself was vaguely surprising, given that it lay in a predominantly Muggle area, and Harry knew for a fact that number twelve was the only Wizarding residence on the entire street.

Not that he was complaining. Harry liked the quiet. Of course he did.

Sitting on the doorstep, Harry watched as one of those occasional cars puttered past, the smoke from its exhaust puffing into the cool autumnal morning air. A Volkswagen, vibrantly red, it stood out like a smear of blood on snow, though not in a particularly bad way. Harry followed it with his eyes as it reached the end of the street, turned, and disappeared with the dying chugs of a clacking engine.

"Punch buggy red," Harry muttered, tapping rather than punching the shoulder of the dog at his side. "I'm winning. If you keep refusing to participate, then you'll be completely annihilated."

With a snort, the dog tipped his head bag and peered up at Harry. Warm, familiar eyes regarded him laughingly, and Harry could swear Sirius heard his words; even beyond the grave, even as a dog, Harry knew he was heard.

Curling his fingers into the mess of fur around Padfoot's ruff, Harry released a sigh. His breath plumed in the air before him, not thickly but with the promise of winter to come. A chill wrapped around Harry's shoulders, but he didn't mind. It wasn't really that cold, anyway. Not to him.

Besides, Harry was used to being cold, and found it was, in many ways, comforting. The touch of his mother's fingers to his cheek. His father's hand resting in his own. Padfoot's fur, as cold as frosted grass, pressing against his palm.

Harry was used to it, and even if such familiarity was a product of his primary correspondences being dead, he liked it. Cold was comforting. Cold meant home.

Tucking his legs more comfortably to his chest, Harry dropped his chin onto his knees. His hand absently stroked Padfoot's back, and he didn't care an ounce how his petting of the air would appear to anyone that happened to pass by. Harry was used to receiving confused and often even wary glances. He was strange; how could he not be when he spent so much time with the dead that they couldn't see?

Besides, stroking Padfoot, even without the warmth of a real, live body, was a comfort that offset the thoughts that had been plaguing Harry for the past days since his discussion with James. Harry had been feeling hollow, scooped out, as though his guts were wrenched from his belly and brutally spread on painful display because he _didn't understand_ and it _hurt._ Talk of death, but of a different kind to what Harry was used to – not where life had been torn away but where it was deliberately sought – rocked him on his foundations.

It wasn't so much that it was Malfoy, three storeys above Harry and still sitting in Regulus' room, that unsettled him. It was everything else. It was a heightened comprehension of something that Harry didn't want to understand and hadn't ever properly contemplated. It was that Lupin had been afflicted by such an urge and he hadn't even known. It was the expression on James' face, the sadness and regret and pain, but also a deep, deep commiseration. As though he _knew_ , and _accepted_ , even if he might want otherwise.

Harry was confused. It seemed that, for all he now knew more and suspected more of Malfoy, his confusion only mounted with each understanding. He couldn't abide it. He wouldn't. Not of Malfoy, and not of anyone else.

Harry had seen too much death. Even that of an old enemy couldn't be turned aside from.

Padfoot had known Harry needed him. That happened sometimes; at times, Lily knew and would appear in the library. Other times, James would seat himself across the basement table from him. Not always, because the dead flowed at a different pace and functioned on a variable calendar, but sometimes.

That day it was Padfoot, and Harry was glad he'd arrived. He never spoke besides the silent glances and snuffles that Harry interpreted as he would, and Harry needed that. He needed someone to simply listen. It helped when he felt the urge to verbalise his thoughts on the occasions that silence wouldn't cut it.

"I wonder if it will snow this year," Harry said, raising his gaze to the sky. "Looks like it will rain soon, but…"

Padfoot huffed.

"Did you want to go for a walk or something? Even though I don't know why you stick around, it must be boring always sitting on the doorstep."

Padfoot glanced at Harry sidelong before dropping his head onto his front paws.

Harry dragged his fingers through his thick mane of fur. "Thanks for coming today. Even if you don't talk back when I speak to you, I appreciate it."

Padfoot watched him. He blinked. And then, with the twitch of an ear, he opened his mouth and spoke in a way that Harry only interpreted as words. _Then speak_.

Harry sighed again. He shuffled his feet slightly, his shoeless socks scraping on the steps. Pursing his lips, he drew his gaze down the street. "I don't know what to do about Malfoy."

With another twitch of his ears, Padfoot turned his head towards Harry. He stared up at him, his eyes dark and encouraging, likely more silently supportive than Sirius would have ever been able to manage in his human form. Harry wondered if maybe that was why he'd returned to visit as a dog instead. He'd always had more freedom in his Animagus form, even if it held its own constraints, too.

"I'm not good at looking after people," Harry continued. "Kreacher often reminds me that I can hardly even look after myself. How am I supposed to help someone – someone _alive_ – who firstly doesn't and never has liked me, and secondly apparently doesn't want to be helped?"

Padfoot harrumphed. If a dog could frown, he would be doing so. His ears lowered a little, flattening against his skull, and Harry interpreted it as he knew Sirius would have spoken. _Malfoy's have always been tossers. Don't mind them. You shouldn't waste your time_.

"I know they have been," Harry murmured. "And I know Malfoy's a git. But he needs the help. He tried to… Padfoot, he actually tried to…"

Harry couldn't say it. He could barely think it. Death had become such a constant for him that he hadn't even known it still had the capacity to affect him so fiercely, and yet it clearly did. Paradoxically, Death was Harry's life. Some of those he cared the most for were dead, if only mostly gone. But this? With Malfoy? Harry was still reeling in his state of horror.

His father had been accepting of Malfoy's situation. He'd said that, for many people, it was an escape. Or an opportunity, a liberty, because it entailed choice. Harry understood that on a theoretical level, but to truly comprehend it? He didn't know if he could do that.

"I don't know how to look after someone who doesn't want to be helped," Harry said, fingers curling into Padfoot's cold fur once more and grasping it like a lifeline. "I just don't want him to die. And you know what? I don't think it's even entirely because Narcissa asked me to save him."

Padfoot whimpered slightly. Harry heard it as a sympathetic sigh. _Oh, kiddo. You're in a bit of a fix_.

"Tell me about it. Why do I always land myself in these situations?"

 _Easy. Because you're James' kid_.

"That's not as reassuring as you seem to think it is."

Padfoot huffed in something that felt like a laugh. A grumble with an edge of amusement vibrated through Harry's hand where it rested on his back. _It should be. James, and me, and Lily, and Remus – you should be proud to be our kid._

"I am."

 _We're here to help you. O, at least most of us are_.

Harry swallowed. Maybe that interpretation was a little skewed; Harry didn't know expressly why Lily, or James, or Padfoot still stuck around. Fred was understandable. The old woman who'd visited yesterday was too, when she'd beckoned Harry to her little flat in a plea to call for someone to put her abandoned body to rest.

The boy with the flowers from two days before that was obvious in his own way, too; Harry's front garden, spreading before him with barely a dozen paces of openness between the house and the footpath, would probably fade in a few weeks at most, but for now, the beauty that little boy had silently begged him to bestow in planting a spread of flowers was a testament to his memory. There was no explanation for why he'd needed it, so Harry had simply fulfilled the request for him.

His parents, though? Padfoot? Harry didn't want to think that he was the reason they felt the need to linger. That wasn't fair. Harry didn't like death – hated the thought of it even – but for those that were gone… They should be able to leave properly.

"Thanks," Harry said, tipping his head forwards to all but muffle his words against his knees. "I needed that, I guess. Don't exactly have a lot of people to call on for assistance."

Padfoot hummed a sigh at his side. _You've got one, at least_ , he reminded Harry. _One who's a little warm._

"Yeah."

 _And she's a pretty damned good one._

"She is at that." Harry let his eyes slide closed. He had to, because Padfoots' unspoken words resounded too strongly to take with casualness. Hermione was a pretty damned good one indeed.

She'd visited the previous day. As she always did, as was her schedule, but as she seemed to genuinely want to, too. Harry hadn't told her about Malfoy three floors above them, and she hadn't asked. Of course, she couldn't have possibly known, but Harry doubted he would have had much to tell her even if she had. He still didn't know what to do with Malfoy, nor even if he was alright beyond Kreacher's updates of "the Malfoy brat is sleeping," and "He is finally being eating a little this lunch, the fool boy".

He was alive. That was the important part.

Hermione herself hadn't stayed to talk much either. She seemed as weary as ever, so Harry couldn't load her with more stress. He kept to himself and, for once, slotted into the role of her supporter rather than being the supported. After a spiel of the chaos that was her law firm at the present and the silence that followed, Harry prompted her to fully relieve the weight that so clearly rested upon her shoulders. Unfortunately, that prompting may not have been as helpful as he'd intended.

"How's it been on the Victim's Liberation Front?"

Had Hermione been able to sag any further in her chair, Harry thought she would have done. As it was, her head resting, in her hands where she slumped forwards, only lolled to regard him. "It's not," she said.

"Meaning?"

Sighing, Hermione pushed herself upright. "Meaning that, since Narcissa's died and no one seems capable of moving past the possibility that she's been killed –"

"They still haven't figured it out yet?" Harry interrupted.

Hermione shook her head. "No. But I don't think they'll find anything. From what's been dug up already, it was found that she already had a weak heart, so…" Shrugging, Hermione slouched back into her seat. "Even if she was killed by someone and they played it off as medical causes, I can't see this resolving quickly."

"So what does that mean?" Harry asked quietly.

"What's happening, you mean?" Hermione rubbed a hand across her forehead. "The VLF's ground to a stand-still over the past few weeks, and it's worse because this is a time that they really can't afford to slow. We were making progress, so to stumble now…"

"That would be bad?" Harry asked more than stated.

Hermione nodded. "Yes. It could reverse years of work. If no one will step up to nudge it forwards once more, then I don't know if the prisoners with relative innocence ever stand a chance of getting out of Azkaban."

Harry fell quiet as Hermione continued in a low voice, detailing the articles in the papers that had slammed the VLF and her struggle to have someone step up to take her place, but…

"Sonia Kettleburn has always been headstrong, and Jamison Parker would do a good job, but neither of them wants to take up Narcissa's mantle." Hermione heaved a heartfelt, exhausted sigh. "They're all too scared after her death, I think. Like they're worried someone could be out to target them."

Harry couldn't blame them, though he offered words of commiseration to Hermione instead of agreeing. Death was a scary thing, if not so much to Harry himself – or at least not of the traditional kind. Murder was different, and so too was the kind that he'd been so abruptly confronted with of late. Still, his mind was for once distracted from the slow, building rage that afflicted him when mention of murder arose, instead drifting further afield.

If the VLF had slowed, then that meant the prisoners – wrongly accused or otherwise – wouldn't see the light of day any time soon. And _that_ meant that one victim in particular wouldn't be around to help his son when that son needed him.

Harry had thought long and hard. He'd pondered over what to do with Malfoy, and though it had been painful and still left him shaken with horror, he persevered. He'd hashed and rehashed the possibility of taking Malfoy to hospital before setting the notion aside for further thought, for when he truly needed it. Narcissa had told _him_ to help Draco, not to take him to hospital, so there must be something Harry could do. Something, impossibly, because Harry had no clue as to how to approach a subject that so repulsed him in theory, even as it left him heartbroken for the practice of it. He'd thought about asking Hermione, too, and his mother, but the thought of discussing it further…

It hurt. Like a physical injury, Harry hurt at the very thought.

Conclusively, resolutely, he'd had decided that the best option was to have someone fill in Narcissa's role. Not as a mother, for even if Harry thought such an option was suitable for Malfoy and the grown adult he was, Malfoy himself would likely bite the poor person's head off. But he needed someone. A carer. Moral support. Someone who knew him and could drag him from whatever darkness had driven him to so nearly end his own life. To help him 'climb back up again' from where he'd fallen, as James had phrased it.

It wasn't quite what Narcissa had requested, but it was as good as Harry could manage. Better than St. Mungo's, at least, if suggestion of the potential mistreatment of ex-Death Eaters was any indication. He needed a medium; somewhere in the middle.

Lucius Malfoy was the natural option. He was Malfoy's father, after all. He knew him, would be able to care for him – or, should the more likely case be that Lucius was the one who needed the help upon leaving Azkaban, their mutual support would help Malfoy as well. Harry knew little enough about how to care for either a grieving family or a recently released prisoner, but having a distraction was supposed to be a good thing, wasn't it? A distraction, something to give purpose, someone who needed them and wouldn't allow for sinking into misery or the memory of pain.

Like a desperate father or son. Or a puppy.

"Maybe I should just get Malfoy a puppy," Harry murmured, running his hands through Padfoot's fur once more and pulling on the tufts of his ears. "It might even make the puppy girl happy if I found one. Two birds with one stone and all."

Padfoot peered up at him with his expressive eyes, and Harry could almost hear his words: _A grand idea, but would Malfoy be up for that? I'd love to see you try and force a dog into his company_.

"Yeah." Harry huffed with a touch of unamused laughter. Though he agreed with the thought in a basic sense, what he'd grown to understand of Malfoy in the past days refused to allow Harry to consider revelling in the thought. "He's a bit of a prat. And he used to be such a neat-freak, so I can't imagine he'd be up for having a puppy peeing and slobbering all over the place. Even if he has changed his priorities, I don't think I could imagine that."

 _It'd be funny to watch_.

"Maybe, but I have to live with it, at least for now."

 _Maybe you could get a puppy?_

"No. I don't think so. Besides, why would I need one when I've got you?" Harry tugged on the tips of Padfoot's ears once more, and though they were too cold for real fur, felt just a little too thin – like gossamer curtains, not quite wholly substantial – it was comforting. "I've never had an actual dog to look after before, but even if I had I don't think I'd be able to –"

"Who are you talking to?"

Starting, Harry straightened. He twisted in his seat so fast that he nearly rocked sideways to sprawl on the ground. Hands propping on the step behind him, Harry turned and peered up to where the unexpected figure of Malfoy loomed above him.

He still looked pale. There were still smudges beneath his eyes, and his cheeks still looked too hollow to be healthy. Standing, he looked even taller, even thinner, and the effect was only heightened by the slightly arrogant tip of his head.

Arrogant… but different.

Malfoy might look slightly healthier than he had been days before – which wouldn't be a particularly difficult feat given how sick he'd appeared – and he didn't shake where he stood anymore as though suffering from a fever. But he didn't look the same. He didn't look as Harry recalled him to be from their Hogwarts days.

The war had changed many people, and not only those of the side of the Light. Harry knew that the Malfoy's had been struck hard. Malfoy himself had been put under house arrest for a year, and his mother allowed freedom just as limited. Lucius, however, had been imprisoned in Azkaban, and despite the efforts of the VLF, Harry didn't know if that reality was going to change any time shortly.

It would have been ludicrous to consider that Malfoy to be unaffected by such losses and restrictions. Harry just hadn't considered it at all. He'd barely thought Malfoy in years, for that matter, even when Hermione had begun mentioning her involvement in the VLF ad Narcissa's role. Malfoy wasn't a part of Harry's life anymore, and he wasn't important. Besides, Harry had bigger problems to consider, and those were markedly more demanding of his time.

But now, when Harry looked he saw that, perhaps as much as Harry himself had been changed, so too had Malfoy. It wasn't just how he looked, either, though even that would have drawn Harry up short had he stumbled upon him out of context. It was how he held himself. Even with the tip of his chin, the superiority that such a gesture suggested, the impression was otherwise lost. Malfoy held his shoulders too tightly, almost hunched. He shifted slightly in place, as though on the verge of shuffling awkwardly. His gaze met Harry's before darting away to one side, then drawing back to Harry's and skittering off in the other direction.

Malfoy was probably still a prat, but Harry thought he would have suspected something was wrong with him even had he not found him in the situation he had.

"You're up," Harry said slowly.

Malfoy's gaze snapped towards him from where they'd shifted briefly down the street. His lips didn't quite sneer, or perhaps they tried to but he'd somehow forgotten how to do it properly. "How very observant of you, Potter."

Harry brushed the snideness aside. "I'm just surprised," he said, turning more fully in his seat. "Are you feeling better?"

Malfoy regarded him before slowly folding his arms. It looked like a gesture of defiance, but his arms were too thin, his hands too clutching, to give weight to such an attempt. "Better?" He scoffed slightly. "Shut the fuck up, Potter."

"What did I say?"

Malfoy glared. "What did you say _wrong_?"

"Yeah. That."

"That you even have to ask that…"

"Call me ignorant," Harry said, shrugging. He wasn't particularly offended. He wondered if he even could be by Malfoy in the state he was in. "What did I say that was wrong?"

Clicking his tongue in a way that sounded far more suitable to the Malfoy Harry knew, Malfoy dropped his gaze to his unshod feet. "That you even have to ask that… Do you know what you've done?"

"You mean other than saved your life?"

Malfoy twitched. "You ruined my death."

A flicker of something painfully familiar stabbed through Harry's chest. He very nearly glared up at _stupid_ Malfoy with his _stupidly_ skewed perceptions. "Ruined it? There's nothing to ruin. Death itself will always be sad and broken."

"Says the purely innocent Saviour," Malfoy said. His sneer was more fluid this time.

Harry didn't bother suppressing his glare. "You know jack-shit, Malfoy. Shut the hell up." Then he bit his tongue, cursing himself. This wasn't right. He was supposed to be helping Malfoy. "Sorry," he managed. The words felt bitter on his tongue.

Malfoy's own glare faded slightly with his apology. "What's this?"

"What?"

"Sorry? Potter, you've never apologised to me in your life."

Harry tucked his knees to his chest once more. "Consider this a first, then."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why would you apologise? We don't –" Malfoy's arms seemed to unconsciously tighten around himself. "We don't apologise to each other. That's not how it's done."

"Well, then, let's just say I've had a change of heart. You clearly need it."

In an instant, Malfoy's momentary quelling vanished and his hackles rose like a dog's. His lip curled in a full sneer that was so familiar that Harry felt suddenly fifteen again. It was only a touch shadowed by his evident illness this time. "I don't need your pity, Potter. Just because you saw something, something you shouldn't have, something you had _no right_ –"

"No right?" Harry frowned up at him. "I don't think 'rights' have a say in the matter when you're trying to kill yourself, Malfoy. It's about saving your life. Rights are a privilege for when safety isn't compromised."

Malfoy stuttered, eyes flaring, so Harry continued into his floundering. "And it's not pity. It's called respect for your situation. Your situation which sucks. What's going on for you sucks, Malfoy. There's nothing wrong with me changing my stance when I have a better understanding of you and realise you're going through hell."

For a moment, Harry thought Malfoy might hex him. He didn't even have his wand on him, but Harry thought it possible. The anger that made sharp planes of his face was so vivid that he could almost taste it.

But Malfoy didn't strike. Like a balloon abruptly speared to let its buoyant helium escape, his shoulders slumped and he sagged in place. "My situation," he murmured. Then he shook his head. "You don't have a place in this, Potter. I don't know why you stopped me –"

"Helped you," Harry quietly corrected.

"- but it wasn't needed." Malfoy continued as though he hadn't heard him. "I have… I have it handled. I know what I'm doing."

Another flicker of pain, of cold anger and aversion, welled briefly within Harry. He shivered from a different kind of chill to what he was used to. "I don't think you do," he said.

Malfoy twitched again. "Potter, it's not your place –"

"Maybe not," Harry cut him off. He dropped his gaze to his knees before turning it out to the road once more. Another car cruised past, the second in barely ten minutes. That must be some kind of record for Grimmauld Place. "But I don't want to see you die. I don't want to see anyone die."

Silence fell between them, broken only by a murmured whistle of air that hissed as it curled through the makeshift garden Harry had planted only days before. Harry almost didn't expect Malfoy to speak, so flinched slightly when his voice, quiet and flat yet somehow _pained_ and _hurting_ , spoke once more. "It's inevitable, avoiding it entirely. But if you don't want to see, then you don't have to watch." A pause, and then, "I'm leaving."

Harry turned slowly back up towards him. Malfoy's shoulders were hunched once more, and he seemed to be all but shrinking into the shadowed doorway behind him. He must have been cold in the thin shirt and slacks he wore; they fit him surprisingly well considering they were Harry's, with only an inch or two short at the ankles.

Harry regarded his bare toes pointedly. "Leaving like that?" he asked, because it was the first thought that rose in his mind.

Malfoy shifted in place. Again. He'd never done that before, not when they were younger. It bespoke an uncertainty that his childhood self had never possessed. "Like what?"

"You don't even have any shoes."

"So? I won't have to walk far. Magic does have its uses."

"Without your wand?" Harry cocked his head as he raised his gaze to meet Malfoy's hollow eyes. "That's impressive."

"Shut up, Potter," Malfoy said, though without the heat his tone had held before.

Resting his chin back upon his knees, Harry stared up at him unblinkingly. He felt strangely calm. Determined, almost. The sickening repulsion that had huddled in his gut for days now, the horror of finding Malfoy and confronting just what afflicted him, seemed to have become momentarily tranquil. "I can't let you leave," he said quietly.

"You can't really stop me," Malfoy said, even as his shoulders hunched a little further as if awaiting reprimand.

"I could."

"No, you couldn't. I've made my mind up, and –" Malfoy's voice caught. It was so reminiscent of how he'd spoken barely a week ago that any anger Harry felt for him smouldered into nothing. Only sadness – not quite pity but regret – remained behind.

"Are you going to go to a hospital?" Harry asked.

Expectedly, Malfoy shook his head.

"Are you going to get help from… a friend?"

"A friend?" Malfoy snorted, but it sounded so forced it was almost pathetic. "What friend?"

"A family member, then. Someone."

"I don't need to."

Harry knew what that meant. He almost sighed in understanding. _He really does intend to try to kill himself again, whether actively or just by letting himself go._ The thought twinged once more. No, Harry didn't like Malfoy. He never had. And no, he didn't care all that much for living people; his attention was reserved for the dead who needed him and the precious few people alive who he cared for, even if they no longer returned that care.

But Malfoy? Malfoy and his intentions? In a way, Harry felt almost like he was helping a dead man, even if said man didn't want to be helped.

"Then I can't let you leave," he said finally.

Malfoy, his gaze turned inward, seemed to swim to the surface of awareness with a snap. "What?"

"If you're going to try and hurt yourself again, then…" Harry bit his lip, chewing before he realised he'd done so and forced himself to stop. "I'm not going to let you leave."

"You… you're…" Malfoy stuttered, his arms falling limply from their fold. "You're keeping me a prisoner?"

"That's a little dramatic," Harry muttered.

"You can't _do_ that."

"Why?"

"Autonomy, Potter," Malfoy all but spat. He was shaking slightly, though Harry thought it was for a different reason than the one he'd been afflicted by days before.

"Maybe people who are going to give up their lives shouldn't be given the benefits of autonomy," Harry said, and though his words felt a little wrong, he didn't regret speaking them. "It's not like you'll have all that much of it after you die anyway."

Malfoy's cheeks slowly flushed. He looked angry, Harry thought. No, he looked desperate, and an expression startlingly reminiscent of the one Narcissa had worn barely days before. How saddening, that they should be equally impassioned by opposing wants.

Malfoy's hands opened and closed into fists at his side once, twice, three times. "Why are you doing this?" he said, his voice hoarse.

"Doing what?" Harry asked. "Saving you?"

"Why do you care about me?"

"Honestly?" Harry chewed his lip again, contemplated, then shrugged. _Why not tell him the truth?_ "I don't."

"Then why –?"

"Because I promised your mother. She's the one I care about, and she wanted me to save you."

The flush in Malfoy's cheeks faded. Like light fading from a conjured Patronus, his cheeks were left in stark paleness even whiter than they'd been before. "My mother… You said that before."

Harry nodded. "I promised her."

"I don't – you didn't –" Malfoy swallowed thickly. "You didn't even know my mother. I would have known if you did."

"No," Harry conceded. "I didn't. When she was alive."

"What does that even mean?" Malfoy croaked, desperation slipping into his words.

Harry shrugged. "What it sounds like. She died, and before she left, she asked me to help you."

Harry knew how it sounded. He'd been forced to hear it countless times, and not just with the Weasleys. He'd told Hermione again and again, and she still regarded him warily, as though she wasn't sure if he was mad or pulling an persistent, elaborate, and cruel prank. But it wasn't just his friends he'd seen it from; some of his visitors needed help with their families. Sometimes they came with notes that he delivered directly or spoke aloud to them. Sometimes there was a gift – of money, of a kiss to a cheek, of a precious memento the importance of which was known only to the dead and those left behind.

The expression of blank-faced disbelief on Malfoy's face, the almost-resentment 'for teasing him', was more than familiar than Harry had ever wanted it to be. "You're insane," Malfoy said, slowly shaking his head.

Harry tipped his head backwards to regard the sky. _How many times have I been told that?_ he wondered. He'd stopped counting years ago. "Maybe," he said, then paused before deciding to discard any further hesitancy. "Think what you will, but she did. She told me. The night after she died, she woke me up, dragged me to your manor, and begged me to save you."

Malfoy's face was so white he seemed more a ghost than his mother had ever appeared. "You – you're lying – "

"Of course I'm not," Harry said. "Why would I?"

"I never thought – never that you were so _cruel_ , Potter –"

"Maybe I am, but I'm telling you the truth." Harry shrugged again. "Don't believe me if you want, but I am. Besides, when you think about it, why else would I have gone to fetch you from your house?"

Malfoy swallowed again; he made the motion seem painful. Squeezing his eyes closed, he shook his head. "You're trying to tell me… that my mother…"

"Yes."

"My mother asked you to…"

"To save you, yes."

Malfoy's eyes peeled open, and the evidence of tears he clearly fought to suppress welled within them. "She asked you to – to –"

"She didn't want you to kill yourself, Malfoy," Harry said quietly. "Call it her final wish."

Something like a squeak but deeper, from his chest, slipped from Malfoy's lips. His chin trembled slightly, and he didn't seem like he knew whether to glare at Harry or dissolve into the tears that teetered just out of view. Harry watched him a little sadly, because he wasn't _heartless_ , but mostly simply waiting. Simply watching. He'd promised to help Malfoy, and he would.

After a long moment, when Malfoy finally seemed to fall prey to his emotions enough to raise a hand and shield his eyes, Harry spoke. "Don't leave, Malfoy. If for nothing else, for your mother –"

"Don't."

Harry paused. Then he continued. "She asked me to save you."

"Please. Don't."

"It's the truth."

"I…" Malfoy scrubbed fiercely at his eyes before dropping his hand. His glare wasn't quite as convincing for the redness of his eyes. "I don't know if I believe you, but…"

"You'll stay?" Harry asked quietly. Maybe a little hopefully, too.

Malfoy pressed his lips together in what appeared to be an attempt to still his trembling chin. It mostly worked. "I hate you, Potter," he said. "But I can't –"

"Do you want me to take you to hospital?" Harry asked.

"No," Malfoy said fiercely. "I don't, so –" He cut himself of, wiped his eyes once more, then dropped his arms limply. "You're wrong. I hate you, and you're wrong. But if it's what Mother would have wanted, then…"

"You hate me?" Harry asked, not offended but a touch surprised. He'd expected dislike, maybe, but Harry hadn't been aware that Malfoy still carried such intense feelings towards him as those that had existed in their younger years. He certainly didn't; he just didn't have the energy or the care to possess such feelings anymore.

"Of course," Malfoy said with a coldness undermined by his wavering voice. He turned sharply towards the interior of the house. "You're making me live."

He disappeared back inside without another word, and Harry could only stare in his wake as his slipped into the gloom of the hallway. The door swung slowly shut after him, closing with a final click.

"Well," Harry murmured, vaguely stunned, "that went well. I guess he's staying?"

No reply came, but then, Harry hadn't expected any. Not from Padfoot, who he'd all but forgotten. He was a dog, after all, even if Harry did interpret his silent stares as words. When he dropped his gaze back down to his side, however, it was to find that Padfoot had already left him anyway. Harry hadn't even heard him leave.

Not that it was unexpected. They came back, but all of them, each and every one of them, left again. That was simply the way it was.


	5. Chapter 5 - Edging Forwards

**Chapter 5: Edging Forwards**

 _Hermione,_

 _You read those books, right? If someone was depressed and had tried and still wanted to kill themselves, what would you do to help them?_

In hindsight, the spur-of-the-moment letter probably wasn't the best way Harry could have handled the situation. He should have approached it more delicately. Maybe, just maybe, he should have talked to James _before_ rather than _after_ he'd sent a blatant request to Hermione for aid.

"A lot of people grow immediately wary when the subject of suicide arises," James was saying as they sat in the basement kitchen. His face was hidden in his hands but a slight chuckle managed to slip through his fingers. "That likely wasn't the best approach."

"What do you mean?" Harry said, frowning. He could understand that the subject of death – or, more specifically, suicide – might trigger some people. He himself felt himself tense at even a passing thought. His father's exasperation didn't quite make sense, however. "Did I do something wrong?"

James peered through his fingers. The quiver of his smile was just visible. "You're a bit oblivious when it comes to people, aren't you, kiddo?"

"Huh?"

"Social filters."

"Oh." Harry blinked. "Well, I guess I'm probably out of practice from the past few years if I was ever any good in the first place."

James opened his mouth to reply but before he could get a word out, there was a tumbling thud from upstairs, a yelp, and the round of thundering feet charging down the stairwell. Harry lurched from his seat – Malfoy? Was something wrong with him? – but had barely spun towards the doorway when Hermione all but fell down the stairwell into the kitchen.

"Harry?" she gasped, her voice trembling. "Are you -? You're not -?"

"She was worried about you," James said quietly.

"What?" Harry asked, sparing him a glance. "What do you mean?"

James didn't get a chance to reply before Hermione was throwing herself across the room. In an instant, Harry found himself crushed in her arms, her head burying itself in his neck, and ragged pants puffing into his ear that sounded almost like sobs.

"God," Hermione said, her voice cracking. "You scared the life out of me."

Harry almost couldn't breathe for the tightness of her embrace, let alone hug her back. Peering over her shoulder, he met his father's smiling gaze as James propped his chin onto a hand in his usual languid pose. _What?_ Harry mouthed.

"I think she suspected your letter was a call for help," James explained. "Maybe that you had such intentions yourself."

"W-what?" Harry stuttered. "I'm not going to try to kill myself!"

"You sure as hell won't," Hermione said, drawing away from him just enough to pin him with a glare. The effect was dampened somewhat by the tears that welled within her eyes. "I won't let you."

"I'm not –"

"Harry, why didn't you tell me something was wrong?"

"No, I wasn't –"

"I'm here to _help_ you." Hermione's voice grew pleading, and though she looked as exhausted as she always did these days, there was fierce protectiveness to her glare and even fiercer in her hold upon him. "You just need to talk to me."

"No, no, no, you've got completely the wrong idea." Extracting an arm from Hermione's clinching grasp, he raked his hand through his hair. "I wasn't asking for… that reason."

"What?" Hermione's lips thinned.

"I was – I was just –" Sighing, Harry wiped his hand down his face. His father was apparently correct in his observations; Harry was very much lacking in social skills. When had that happened, exactly? After he'd all but lost the Weasleys? When he'd begun retreating into the solitude of Grimmauld Place? Or had he always been so inept? Harry didn't know.

Hermione squeezed him slightly in her embrace, a request for attention. "Tell me," she said.

So Harry did. He told her about finding Malfoy. He told her about bringing him home, and about his loss as for what to do with him next. He confessed he was helpless in all but directing Kreacher to ensure Malfoy didn't go through with his previous intentions.

The very thought drew a shiver down Harry's spine. He hunched slightly in the seat he'd resumed as Hermione all but collapsed into her own at the dining table. She seemed even more exhausted from her flight when she realised it had been unnecessary. Not, however, too exhausted to dismiss the opportunity for brainstorming.

"I don't know what to do with him," Harry admitted, folding his arms on the table before him and dropping his chin down to rest upon them. "I'm no good at helping people."

Hermione had been quiet throughout much of Harry's retelling. Almost as quiet at James who, surprisingly, still remained seated across the table from them. She picked at her fingernails, frowning. "I think you are," she said absently. "Just not in the conventional ways."

"Meaning?"

Hermione shrugged. "Maybe not good at talking so much but at doing."

"Swell. I'm sure that's exactly what Malfoy needs."

Hermione sighed, but it was James who spoke. "Maybe he should see someone? A therapist or something. I know Remus did for a while, and I think it helped him a little."

"Malfoy seems averse to going to hospital," Harry said, glancing James' way. "I don't think a therapist would work."

"Yes, that's understandable," Hermione muttered, apparently missing that Harry hadn't been speaking to her at all. "I can't imagine Malfoy – or any ex-Death Eaters – would feel comfortable with that."

Harry frowned. "What? Why?"

"Conflict of interest," Hermione said at the same moment James replied, "Because everyone thinks that all Death Eaters are assholes, and they're probably mostly right."

Harry snorted. "Well, that's stupid. They can't all be bad."

Hermione stared at him for a moment before seeming to adapt his words to fit her own reply. "Exactly. That's what the VLF is trying to emphasise to the Wizarding world but isn't really working. The fact of the matter is that if Malfoy went to St. Mungo's or tried to see a therapist, chances are whoever was treating him wouldn't treat him quite… properly."

Harry slowly straightened. A spark of anger ignited within him, and he didn't bother smothering it. It was true that he didn't usually bother with living people, but should someone be rapping on Death's door? Should they be actively inviting themselves beyond? Harry wouldn't stand for that. He couldn't. And that someone would think to inadequately and deceptively do the same… It was infuriating.

"That's bullshit," he muttered.

Hermione nodded. "It is. Completely. And it's something that the VLF is attempting to change. If we could only pool our forces more efficiently to convince people – "

"You don't have to give me the enlistment spiel, Hermione," Harry interrupted her. "I'm already convinced."

With a small smile, Hermione nodded. "I know. And the fact that you dismiss Malfoy's past to help him is proof of that."

It wasn't the whole reason, nor even the primary one, but Harry let the truth lie. Hermione was brilliantly smart, but when it came to the strangeness that Harry's magic had become, she seemed to falter. Most people did.

"He's still a git," Harry said. "I'm sure of it."

"Most likely," Hermione agreed.

"You didn't work with him, did you? When you corresponded with Narcissa for the VLF?"

Hermione shook her head. "No. He was always absent. I don't think he's much for public appearances, and when he was…" She trailed off, frowning. "You know, it sort of makes sense."

"What does?" Harry asked.

"That he might be, ah… having _troubles_. That he might be, you know…" Hermione paused to make an indecipherable gesture with her hand. "Mentally ill."

Harry stared at her. She glanced overhead as though to squint at Malfoy through the ceiling. The way she shifted slightly in her seat, as though discomforted by her own suggestion…

Harry frowned. With a glance at James, he saw understanding offered as a smile and understood himself. It was just as James had said when he'd spoken of Lupin each time they'd spoken in the past few days; as soon as the subject of mental illness arose, anything of depression or suicide, it was as though perspectives shifted. As though egg-shells abruptly underscored every word, threatening to crack.

Was it any wonder that people didn't seek help? It was especially apparent for Malfoy. Something not quite pitying but certainly sympathetic rose within Harry; it was a painful, isolating feeling to know that everyone viewed him differently, as strange or 'insane' for what he saw, how he thought, and who he was. Maybe Harry's kind of different wasn't quite the same as Malfoy's, but he thought he understood him a little better at that moment.

It was sad that Hermione apparently didn't, too. She was smart – so smart – and yet in this instance seemed uncomprehending. After all the past years, she'd showered Harry with love and support but had always looked at him a little warily, too.

Shoving the sobering thought aside – it was unworthy, even if it was something Harry wished could be different – he propped his elbows on the table once more. "You think Malfoy might have been having problems before his mother died?"

Hermione nodded. "I would almost wager on it."

"An unfair wager," James whisper-muttered. "It's obvious."

"Is it?" Harry asked.

Hermione raised an eyebrow. "Is it what?"

Shaking his head, Harry waved a disregarding hand. "Nothing. But why do you think that?"

Hermione frowned, picking at her fingernails once more. "Just that it sort of makes sense now, some of the things Narcissa said and did now. I get the impression she was looking after him, maybe. Probably ensured he took his potions and everything, if he was on them."

"Potions?"

"Anti-depressants. They help with, um… bad thoughts. Moods, and such."

Again, Hermione's discomfort had her shifting awkwardly in her seat. Harry deliberately overlooked it. "Can we get some for him? Will that make him better?"

"It's not so simple," James said as Hermione shook her head and spoke herself. "Potions aren't the cure-all when it comes to mental illnesses. They help for some people, but rehabilitation and therapy are usually necessary as well."

"How do we do that, then? If people won't treat him fairly, how could we even make sure that Malfoy got proper help?"

Hermione shook her head. "I don't know," she said, her voice small.

Slumping back in his chair, Harry frowned. Raising a leg, he absently tucked it against himself, dropping his chin on top. It was troubling. Harry wasn't a Healer. He wasn't a 'people person', and he didn't know how to help anyone besides removing himself from their company when they didn't want him around. The dead were more forward and far more easily helped; at least their problems had an end goal in sight.

 _Or at least most of them do,_ Harry thought, sparing a glance for James.

James smiled at him. As though reading his mind – which was a eerie habit that many of Harry's visitors seemed capable of in a fashion that he'd long ago grown accustomed to – he spoke. "You could keep him here. Get him back on his potions, if he'll allow it. Give him time to work through his grief surrounded by company, because even if you're not actively doing anything, I think knowing others are around would be helpful."

"Are you speaking from experience?" Harry asked quietly, thinking of Lupin.

James shrugged. "In a way. Recovery starts with the patient, as it's always said. The Malfoy kid needs to want to get better and accept that he can before any real help can be given."

"But he doesn't want to," Harry said, pursing his lips. Raising a hand, he gave a disgruntled tug of his fringe. "We've established that."

"But he's staying here, right?" James cocked his head. "That's something."

"Only because I told him about his mother."

James shrugged. "Even so, there must be a part of him that doesn't want to die if he could be talked out of it. Even if it's just guilt for the pain it would cause someone else."

"Someone dead," Harry reminded him. "How long's that going to last, do you think?"

James shrugged again. "That doesn't matter you can use that as a crutch to nudge him along. Maybe that's just what he needs now."

"But what can _I_ do," Harry said. He gave another sharp tug of his fringe before letting his arm drop. "Narcissa asked me to save him, but I'm not helping if I just sit by and watch. Do you think I should –?"

"Harry," Hermione said quietly. "Who are you talking to?"

Harry paused. Slowly, he turned towards Hermione. It was with a hint of resignation that he beheld the familiar wariness in her expression, the wideness of her eyes as she drew her gaze between Harry and James. Or Harry and the empty chair, as it would appear.

Once, Harry would have felt ashamed for his slip. Once, he would have been better at smothering the urge to converse with his visitors in plain sight. That urge had faded, however, when all but Hermione were no longer around to judge him for it.

"Sorry," Harry said, even if he wasn't truly apologising. "I was just talking to my dad."

"Your… dad?" Hermione glanced once more to the chair. She licked her lips before nodding slowly. "He's here today, then?"

Harry nodded. She tried. Hermione really did try. Sometimes Harry thought she even believed him. Other times she didn't, and he knew she pondered whether he was truly sliding into insanity, but that hardly mattered. She hadn't attempted an intervention or anything of the sorts to save him from it. Apparently she considered his 'hallucinations' somehow good for him.

"Possibly damaging to let manifest, but they really do seem to help you," she'd said years ago. That was after St. Mungo's hadn't been able to 'fix' him. Like a mother accepting defeat, Hermione had brushed the failure aside and chosen to accept it for what it was. And, just like a mother, she loved him for it nonetheless.

"He's got some suggestions," Harry said. "Or at least I think he does."

"Does he, now?" Hermione said in the same voice one might to that very child and their imaginary friend. Harry suspected she didn't even realise she adopted it.

He nodded again. Some things he couldn't change. Turning back to James, he said, "Dad? Suggestions?"

Hermione watched Harry as James frowned with a thoughtful nod. "Making the environment safe is a good place to start," he finally said. "So there's nothing he can hurt himself on."

"It sounds like you're talking about a toddler."

"It's similar, in a way," James said. "Condescending, maybe, but necessary."

"So, what? Put protection charms on sharp knives and windows and stuff?"

"That's a good idea," Hermione murmured. "I can help with that."

Harry turned towards her once more. When he met her gaze, when she smiled slightly, small and accepting, he knew that, even without her understanding, she was the best thing that had ever happened to him. Even better that she hadn't offered Harry his own wand. She still had it, Harry knew. She'd had it for days. Maybe she was finally acknowledging his magical inability.

"Thanks," he said. "That would really help."

Hermione's smile softened. "Sure, Harry. Anything you need."

* * *

It did feel condescending. Almost cruel, even, and somehow derogatory. Harry had to stifle the urge to wince as he and Hermione effectively bubble-wrapped Grimmauld Place. He reminded himself that it was necessary as Hermione charmed every piece of cutlery – "It shouldn't just be the knives, I don't think," she'd said – to minimise the risk of self-harm. They warded the windows to prevent bodies passing out of them as they were already warded against intruders. Over the stairwell bannisters too, which Hermione suggested as they climbed the stairs and assessed every room.

The tiebacks on the curtains were charmed. Hermione's analytical mention of the particular uses for ropes had ended in horror and awkwardness from Harry and Hermione respectively. Harry didn't want to think about that. Not at all. He just wished he could stop the way his mind kept turning back towards it.

By the time Hermione had finished all but the room Malfoy was in, midday had ticked past. Kreacher found them, slinking into Harry's shadow and sparing Hermione his usual glare before grumbling to Harry for his attention. "Master must be having his meal now."

"Maybe later, Kreacher," Harry said, pausing outside Regulus' door.

"Master was missing his breakfast this morning," Kreacher muttered, scowling. "He should not be missing anymore." Tutting, Kreacher shook his head until his ears flapped. "Young wizard boys should not be skin and bones, Kreacher is knowing, no that shouldn't. Makes them weak and sickly, it does, it most certainly –"

"Harry," Hermione said, and Harry, sighing at Kreacher's unnecessary mothering, glanced her way.

She didn't say anything further. She didn't need to. Hermione was, in many ways, very similar to Kreacher in that regard. "Are you sleeping enough?" and "Have you eaten today?" and "When was the last time you went outside?" were all common conversation starters she sprung upon him. Harry was far too used to it to be annoyed anymore.

Sighing again, he turned back to Kreacher. "We'll get some lunch as soon as we're done," he said. "Would you be able to make something for Malfoy, too?"

Kreacher grunted, grumbled something beneath his breath, and proceeded to trot down the stairs post-haste. Hermione watched him go, frowning slightly as she often did when considering any house elf, before turning back to Harry.

"Does Malfoy come out to eat?" she asked.

Harry shook his head. "Kreacher brings him stuff. He doesn't eat most of it, but…" He shrugged.

"Oh," was all Hermione said in reply, though her frown shifted slightly into something unreadable. Harry hadn't the chance to discern what it could mean before he was following her into Regulus' room.

It was all but identical to how it had been last time Harry had stepped within. Regulus' old, abandoned desk was as neat and empty as always, his wardrobe stout and imposing in the corner, and the length of his wide bed a mess of blankets with Malfoy lying in the middle of it. That Malfoy appeared to be in all but the same position as last time Harry had visited was a little uncanny; he lay on his side, blankets tangled around his legs, and stared unblinkingly in the direction of the window.

For a moment, Harry and Hermione stood silently in the doorway. What they were waiting for Harry wasn't quite sure of, but he didn't move. It was only when, after long minutes had passed and Malfoy continued to ignore them – or persist in not noticing them at all – that he leant towards Hermione.

"Should we?" he murmured in her ear.

Hermione nodded. With quiet steps, she crossed the room and, raising her wand, beginning the silent casting of her charms upon the window. She moved onto drapes, then paused alongside the desk and tapped through the collection of quills and inkwells stuffed in the draws, unused for decades. It was only when Harry stepped to her side, pausing alongside the window and turning towards Malfoy, that Malfoy seemed to notice them at all.

He shifted on his bed. Blinked. Then a slow frown settled upon across his brow and his gaze sharpened, fixing upon Harry and Hermione. He regarded Harry for a moment, thoughtful and ponderous, but as soon as his glance shifted towards Hermione his face twisted into a scowl. "What are you doing here?"

A flicker of defensive anger rose within Harry, but Hermione briefly touched his arm and it quelled before it had the chance to properly surface. She turned towards Malfoy. "Just fixing up your room," she said.

"What?" Malfoy didn't quite push himself upright, but his arm shifted slightly where it hooked beneath his pillow, tipping his head a up little. "Fixing my room?"

"Yes," Hermione said, hesitancy touching her tone.

"Baby-proofing, you mean." Somehow, Malfoy managed to both mumble and sneer at the same time.

"I wouldn't think of it like that," Hermione said. "It's just a precaution."

"'Just a precaution'," Malfoy mimicked, lip curling again. It was so reminiscent of his schoolyard self that Harry felt his own inner teenager, long dead, rear its head once more. "Well, I don't need it, so fuck off."

"Malfoy," Hermione began, but Harry cut her off. "Wonderful to know you're as much of an arse as you ever were, Malfoy."

Malfoy flickered his gaze towards Harry once more. "I never pretended I was anything otherwise."

"More's the misfortune."

"Fuck off, Potter."

"I can't," Harry said. "We've been through this."

"Fuck you." Malfoy hunched slightly into his pillow but surprisingly, though he grumbled to himself and still regarded Harry, he didn't quite glare. "Your holier-than-thou commitment to your cause does you proud, Potter, but dampen it down a little, could you? Your righteous aura is becoming judgmental."

"I'm not judging you," Harry said, and he meant it. "I'm just saying it like it is. I intend to stick around for as long as you need me."

Malfoy fell silent at that. He watched Harry, and he still didn't seem inclined to glaring despite his words to Hermione. For herself, Hermione was apparently all but forgotten at Harry's side.

Finally, with a huff that could have been a snort, laughter, or simply a sigh, Malfoy closed his eyes and half turned his face into his pillow. "You're so fucking weird, Potter," he mumbled, his voice muffled.

Harry shrugged, even if Malfoy wouldn't see it. "I know," he said. Turning, he gently touched Hermione's shoulder and urged her from the room.

They paused on the landing out of earshot of Regulus' room. Harry leant against the bannister of the stairwell as Hermione folded her arms and frowned towards Malfoy's room. "He's certainly different to how he was," she said.

"Really?" Harry raised an eyebrow. "Still seems like a prat to me."

"Harry." Hermione sighed, shaking her head slightly, but Harry only shrugged.

Hermione clearly saw Malfoy differently: as someone that she could no longer hate. Harry might have been approving of that change of perspective, much as he agreed with her opinions of the innocent convicted, but this? It wasn't because of Malfoy's past and any forgiveness of it that she'd altered her views. Her opinion was based solely upon his mental illness.

Maybe Harry was wrong for not thinking the same. He regretted that Malfoy felt the urge to end his life but more for the fact that it was ending a life at all than for any link to Malfoy itself. He regretted too that Malfoy was clearly being eaten up inside by the battle inside his head because even if he knew precious little about depression itself, it was visibly weighing him down. People didn't just lie abed for hours on end, day after day.

But that didn't mean Harry had to forgive him for being a git. It didn't mean he would overlook impoliteness or the disregard for kindness. Harry wasn't _that_ kind himself.

"What should I do with him?" Harry asked, because if anyone could help him it would be Hermione.

She sighed again. Kneading her eyes with both hands, she slowly shook her head. "I don't know, to be perfectly honest. I feel like I don't know enough about depression or suicide to be able to make a valid or useful suggestion. If I could maybe take a look at a book or two…"

Harry bit back the urge to snort. She was trying. Hermione really was trying, and in the only way she knew how. Harry just wasn't sure that going by the books was the best approach. Folding his arms across his chest, he pursed his lips. "I guess I'll just keep an eye on him for now. Hope he works through whatever it is that's… I don't know, so bad at the moment."

"His mother's death," Hermione said solemnly.

"Yeah. That. Maybe he'll feel better about working through it after he's had some down time." Harry raised a hand to scratch awkwardly at his head. It sounded like a pathetic decision even to himself. _Let's sit around and hope it fixes itself_ wasn't exactly a method most conducive to effectiveness.

But Hermione didn't protest. Instead, she only nodded and scrubbed her hands over her face once more. When she exhaled heavily, dragging her fingers down her cheeks, Harry felt a sudden spurt of guilt. She was tired. Truly tired to the point of bone-weariness and Harry had demanded so much of her after nearly scaring her to death barely hours before.

Before he could open his mouth to apologise, Hermione drew a deep breath and exhaled again sharply. "Alright. How about this: I'll get hold of a couple of books, read them in my spare time, and send the useful ones your way."

"What spare time?" Harry said. "Hermione, it's okay. I'll work something out. I'll –"

"Let me do this, Harry," Hermione interrupted him, holding up a silencing hand. "Please. I want to help."

Harry opened his mouth, paused, then pressed his lips together. He nodded curtly and Hermione smiled. "Don't worry about me," she said. "You focus on keeping an eye on Malfoy, and I'll do some background research. I'll send any suggestions your way by owl and I'll try and come over tomorrow afternoon to see how it's going."

"Don't," Harry said. "You're tired."

"Maybe, but this is important."

"Yeah, and I'll deal with it." Harry mentally kicked himself for sending that stupid letter once more, if for a different reason this time. "Really, Hermione. Let me."

"Harry –"

"Hermione."

Hermione paused. She wiped a hand down her face again before blinking rapidly in a tell-tale sign of tiredness. How long had it been since she'd gotten a full night's sleep? Harry didn't know. That guilt welled once more.

"Alright, then," she said finally. "You can handle it. But let me know when you need help."

 _When, not if_ , Harry noted, but didn't comment on the fact. "I will."

"I'll be dropping by to visit," she said.

"Okay."

"I mean it, Harry. You let me know the second you need help, alright?"

Harry met her intent, unblinking, yet so-weary gaze. He didn't disbelieve for a second that she would drive herself to absolute exhaustion for him if needed. He would never force her to that, but she didn't have to know that.

He nodded. "Of course I will."

Hermione regarded him for a beat longer as though discerning the sincerity of his words. Then she nodded slowly herself. "Alright. Good. Now let's go and get something to eat. I'm famished, and I've already had far too much time off work this morning for my unexpected absence. I think Theodora will likely be clucking all a-twitter in my absence as she always does…"

Harry listened with half an ear as Hermione led the way down the stairs to the basement kitchen. He spared a final glance over his shoulder for Malfoy's room as he did so, and he had to wonder.

Hermione had done the best she could. James had made his suggestions. Apparently Narcissa had been keeping Malfoy afloat if their suspicions were to be correct. What could Harry do to fulfil his promise?

He didn't know but vowed to brainstorm upon the subject from the moment Hermione left.

* * *

The following day, Harry received a scribble of a letter from Hermione's familiar barn owl. It was short, to the point, and promised more such letters to come.

 _I've started reading up on anything that I could find. Most of it is Muggle literature, I'm afraid; the Wizarding world seems to be remarkably sparse when it comes to studies of mental illnesses, which I find strange. You'd think that, given so much of magic occurs due to mental fortitude, the mind would be the place to start. Apparently not._

 _From what little I've read, most specialists recommend a combination of therapy and medication. Or potions, as might be the case. Since you said Malfoy would likely dig his heels in at the suggestion of a therapist, I looked a little further afield. Home rehabilitation isn't mentioned quite as much, but there are some indications that it could be a viable route._

 _Apparently the simple act of having people around them can help patients with depression. Even just making them aware that you're there is a method of support you can implement. I know you're not fond of Malfoy and I can hardly claim I am either, but maybe you could give it a go?_

Hermione sounded vaguely clinical and eternally logical in her words, so Harry could only assume she was all but regurgitating the contents of some textbook or other. He appreciated the effort, however, even if he didn't know what to do with what she'd given him.

So he started dropping by Malfoy's room.

It was never anything more than that. Harry would pause inside Malfoy's doorway, peer inside, and as often as not behold him in the same position he always was. At first he'd asked if he was alright, even if it had felt awkward and stilted to offer.

"Can I get you anything?" Harry asked, because that was what people said to someone who wasn't feeling well, right?

Malfoy didn't reply, so Harry left. He returned, however, again and again, and Harry felt that, even if he didn't acknowledge him, Malfoy knew he was there.

 _Attempting to draw someone out of their minds and thoughts is another good approach,_ Hermione wrote several days later. _I read an article about using distraction techniques and though this one mostly related to helping to overcome triggered anxiety, it suggested that such a route could be beneficial for symptoms of depression, too. Maybe try something like music?_

Again, the clinical tone touched Hermione's words, but Harry didn't mind. He tucked the letter the barn owl had left him into his pocket and climbed the stairs into the primary living room. With a heave of effort – because the absence of magic made every kind of heavy lifting a struggle – Harry dragged the vintage turntable in a series of bumps and clatters upstairs and into Sirius' bedroom. He didn't want to plant it deliberately alongside Malfoy to blast music in his ear as 'a distraction', but a thin wall should be close enough – shouldn't it?

If nothing else, the thumping climb and muttered curses Harry found himself uttering should have been enough to draw Malfoy's attention from where it was lost even a little bit. He had to remind himself several times during that climb of his promise to Narcissa; only in hell would he be otherwise playing to Malfoy's whims. They may no longer be enemies, but he wasn't altruistic enough otherwise. Not in the least.

If he was being honest with himself, however, the constant, tinny voice of the record player that echoed through Grimmauld Place from that day forth was soothing. Harry had never been a musical person. He'd never appreciated it and never had much time for it. But the noise, the sounds on the edges of his awareness, were somehow nice. It reminded him of the good old days when he'd spent his holidays at the Weasley's and listened to their old wireless sing excitable tunes, as often Christmas carols as otherwise. If Harry closed his eyes, he could almost pretend they were all gathered in the next room, as loving and affectionate as ever.

 _Simple things like physical company are fundamental to recovery and driving away negative thoughts_ , Hermione said in her letter several days later. Had he not known better, Harry would have sworn she'd copied the textbook word for word. _Many patients with depression suffer from a loss of or disordered appetite. The act of convening over a meal is considered beneficial in not only normalising eating habits but also providing a social context to participate in that is less demanding of active involvement. Any help in driving away loneliness is advantageous._

Harry stared at that letter for a long time before he lowered it to his lap. Raising his gaze, he stared across the library towards the chair that Lily always filled when she visited. That day it was empty, and Harry slumped with a touch of regret. He couldn't expect anything from the dead, not even when it was his own mother. Even so, it would have been nice to have her company.

A visitor had come that morning. He was a middle-aged man, portly and quivering in hesitancy with mournful eyes that begged for Harry's help. Of course Harry had offered it. He'd followed the man the whole way to the nearest cemetery and stood beside his daughter who was otherwise alone but for a minister, watching the lowering of her father's coffin into its grave.

The day before, he'd been a brief visit from the Puppy Girl. It was her third appearance and, just as she had the previous two times, she led Harry to a dog. This one wasn't dead like the first one had been, nor someone else's pet as the second one was. Instead, the pathetic creature was sitting worn and feeble in the enclosure of a pound, awaiting rescue or euthanasia.

The puppy had been going to die, and not because of the possibility of no adoption. Harry had felt it as soon as he'd approached its cage; Death hung from its shaking shoulders like a mouldy blanket. It had hurt to see, hurt to think of it waiting and suffering and trembling on the brink. Harry had touched the puppy's head through the wire, felt his magic spark in the barest flicker, and shoved Death away. It left, driven by what little force Harry's magic possessed.

But Harry didn't rescue the puppy, and the Puppy Girl left.

Fred visited again, and requested they drop by Diagon Alley as usual. Then he left. James appeared briefly, but he left too, and Padfoot was silent company for an afternoon as Harry sat on the doorstep and watched cars crawl past at widely spaced intervals. But even Padfoot left after a time.

It was lonely, Harry accepted, just as it always was. He was used to being alone, and those brief visits, while often leaving an ache behind, stopped him from falling too far within himself and drift towards the insanity that so many people had openly speculated he'd succumbed to.

But Malfoy didn't have that. He didn't have visitors, and he didn't have the urging, desperate, pleading hands of little girls or dead men to beg for his help. Staring at Hermione's letter, Harry was abruptly aware of that fact. Glancing across the table that Kreacher had spread with more food than Harry could ever eat – when had he put it all there? Harry hadn't even noticed – he rose to his feet. Loading up a pair of plates with toast, scones, diced fruit, and a mess of pancakes, he slipped from the basement and climbed the stairs to the top floor.

Malfoy lay on his bed, as usual. Harry had grown to expect that much of him and little else. He couldn't make demands of Malfoy; he'd told him he would stop him from dying for his mother's sake, but nothing more. Malfoy was abiding by him that much at least.

He didn't turn his head as Harry skirted the bed and paused at his side. After a moment, however, Malfoy's detached stare wavered and sharpened, and Harry found himself meeting his gaze. Malfoy wasn't glaring, not yet, but his stare was unblinkingly pointed nonetheless.

"What do you want?" he muttered.

By way of explanation, Harry held out one of his plates. Malfoy regarded it, his lips tugging downward in distaste, before glancing up to Harry once more. "What?"

"It's breakfast," Harry said.

"No shit."

"Well, you did ask."

Malfoy rolled his eyes. It should have been annoying, and a part of Harry was indeed annoyed by the arrogance of the gesture, but not by much. That Malfoy was responding at all was something. "What do you want?" he repeated.

"You should eat something," Harry said.

"I'm not hungry."

"Doesn't matter." Harry knew that much, and not because Hermione had told him either. Or at least not through her suggestive letters. He understood that sometimes, even when hunger was non-existent, it was necessary to eat. Harry experienced that at times. Often, for that matter. Kreacher and Hermione's combined efforts were what reminded him so dutifully.

"Can you leave me alone?" Malfoy said with a heavy sigh. "Is that too much to ask for?"

"In this case? Yes." Harry lowered Malfoy's plate to the nightstand alongside him. "You're not keeping up your end of the deal if you starve yourself to death, Malfoy."

"What deal?" Malfoy said. "I don't remember making a deal. That's all on you."

Harry didn't reply to that. Instead, he took himself to the window, climbed into the little alcove on the sill and, tucking his legs up before him, turned his attention to absently picking at his own breakfast.

Malfoy didn't eat that day. Or not breakfast, anyway. At lunch, when Harry arrived once more and held out a plate with another suggestion, he similarly turned his nose up at it.

Dinner, though – at dinner, he actually propped himself up on an elbow when Harry took his seat in the alcove. "What are you doing?" Malfoy asked flatly.

Poking at his peas with his fork, Harry shrugged. "Eating dinner. What's it look like?"

"Obviously. Why here?"

Another shrug. "I thought you might want the company."

"I don't."

"So you think."

"So I know. Go away, Potter."

Harry didn't glance up from his plate once. "Technically, Malfoy, it's my house. I can go wherever I want."

Malfoy didn't have an objection to that. Surprisingly, however, he didn't slump back into his overused blankets and bury his face in his pillow like a child half his age. Instead he remained propped up, regarding Harry with his unblinking stare. Harry could feel it, even if he didn't glance towards him.

"You baffle me, Potter," he finally said.

"Really?" Harry said, spearing a potato with his fork. "Why?"

"Because you bother." Malfoy snorted. "Why do you bother?"

Harry paused mid bite. Lowering his fork, he turned his gaze out the window. The street beyond was dark, the streetlamps the only illumination. It was empty and just a little lonely, cold and sadly abandoned. Grimmauld Place itself was reminiscent of number twelve upon its block.

"Because," Harry said quietly, more to himself than to Malfoy, "it's all I can really do. When someone needs help, even if it's just for a little bit, how can I not at least try? What use would I be if I didn't try and help the people who needed me?"

Malfoy didn't reply, but Harry didn't care. It took him a long moment to remember to start eating again. As he did, he noticed that Draco had partaken just a little bit of his own. It wasn't much, was next to nothing give he'd not eaten anything else that day, but it was a start.

He sat up properly for dinner the following day. The day after that, he took a bite of breakfast and lunch, too. The day after, when Harry stepped into the room with laden plates, he didn't even make a fuss about his intrusion at all.

Their meals were largely shared in silence. On the odd occasion over the following days, Malfoy would question Harry's intent. "Again? Don't you get tired of this, Potter?" and "Why do you bother? Why do you try so hard?"

Harry never rose to his baiting. Instead he remarked absently that he'd grown from the child he'd once been and that Malfoy could no longer entice him into argument. He still rubbed him the wrong way, annoyed him despite the leniency Harry supposed he should have given him, the leniency that Hermione had mentioned in several of her letters.

But he didn't. Harry wasn't that kind of person. Their meals, which somehow became a habit after barely a week… they were kind of nice. Quiet but nice. That was, until it changed again with a suggestion from Harry's mentor of sorts.

 _Talking_ , was Hermione's most recent letter. Short, simple, and driving home her point. For once she didn't sound overly clinical. _Talking helps. It doesn't matter what the subject is about. Try anything and everything. I know it's Malfoy, but maybe you can give it a go?_

Harry didn't talk. He didn't like to much at all unless it was to his visitors or Hermione. Real people, people who were alive – they were far more difficult to confront. Malfoy, for instance, seemed all but incapable of speaking without being an arse.

But Harry had to try. He'd promised, after all. He'd promised Narcissa and, in a way, Hermione too. Hermione wasn't dead, and his obligation to fulfil her desires wasn't the same as his responsibility to his visitors, but he loved her. If it would make her happy, even in only the vaguest and most secondary manner, Harry would try.

So he did. Where silence had swallowed their mealtimes, he took to speaking more than he usually did at any other interval of the day. In the proceeding days, Harry found himself speaking more than he had in months.

It began on a Monday. "Kreacher made muffins," he said, offering the breakfast plate to Malfoy. "I don't know why, but he apparently wanted to try something new."

Malfoy stared at him as he propped himself up in his bed. "O…kay?"

Taking himself to his customary seat, Harry folded his legs beneath him and picked up a muffin. "I'm not much of a fan of blueberries," he said, and couldn't for the life of him discern why he said it at all. "Strawberry's taste better, in my opinion. Or blackberries." He took a bite of the muffin, paused, and shrugged. "It's not too bad though, I suppose. Kreacher might be a grouch, but he knows how to cook. It must be the innate knowledge of a house elf, I think."

Malfoy didn't reply. He ate half a muffin, watched Harry for a long moment, then wrapped himself back in his blankets. It was expected of him, Harry had grown to realise. Most days, Malfoy seemed lost in thought, only surfacing to eat as Harry was gradually realising was something of a big step for him. But the rest of the time? When he wasn't grumbling or snapping at Harry, he seemed tired. Exhausted even. Listless and… a little lost, somehow.

Harry knew that feeling because he'd been there before himself. He'd never been quite so listless as to spend days abed, but he understood the lack of motivation to move. How could Harry reprimand him for it?

Instead, he joined Malfoy for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and he spoke at him, if not exactly to him. Each day a different subject and each as trivial as the last. Harry didn't even know if Malfoy heard him.

"It definitely feels colder today. I don't have Warming Charms on the house, 'cause I don't usually feel the cold so much, but you're welcome to use one."

Malfoy didn't comment.

"Hermione visited the other day. I don't know if you heard her or not. She brought the _Daily Prophet_ with her, but I never read it."

It was an offering, if not directly suggested, but Malfoy wasn't provoked.

"There's a slight leak upstairs in the attic," Harry said on one particularly rainy day. The _tap-tap-tap_ of that very leak could be heard from Regulus' room, even through the warble of the record playing next door. "I've thought about fixing it, but I'm not much of a handy-man. I mean, I know how to clean a gutter and tend a garden and clean a kitchen or whatever…" He trailed of, finger chasing the line of a raindrop as it dribbled down the window beside him.

Malfoy shifted behind him in his bed, but Harry didn't spare him a glance. He readjusted his half empty plate on his lap. "To be honest, I kind of like the rain. A lot of people think it's really miserable, but it always feels like it washes all the crap away…"

Malfoy still didn't reply, but Harry thought he might have been listening that time. At least, when he rose to his feet to leave, Malfoy met his gaze briefly before turning his regard back to the window.

Trivial things. Meaningless things. When Hermione dropped over the next day, Harry told her of his attempts. She stared up at the basement ceiling as though peering at where Malfoy lay.

"Do you think it's helping him?" she asked quietly.

Harry shrugged. He twisted his teacup in his hands, the tea chilled within ten minutes as it always was when he clasped it between his cold hands. "I don't know. He's still alive, I suppose."

Hermione flinched slightly. "Harry," she stage-whispered as though she expected Malfoy to overhear them. "You can't say things like that."

"Like what?"

"Like… make references to his… you know."

Harry frowned. He understood aversion to suicide. He even understood not wanting to discuss it, for the thought of it always dragged him down with thoughts of _why_ and _how could you_ and _the most horrible thing_. But he didn't consider it a taboo to mention. It wasn't as though the memory was something to be ashamed of, for it wasn't. It had happened. It was simply Harry's job to ensure it didn't happen again.

In the days following, Harry ate alongside Malfoy, and talked at him, and sometimes he thought Malfoy listened. He never responded – not until Harry mentioned his visitors.

The Puppy Girl had visited again that morning. She's become a regular in Harry's schedule, at time appearing even more often than Harry's parents. More often than Fred too, if not quite as consistently as Padfoot. She always tugged on Harry's hand in a bid to be followed, and even if its insubstantial weight held no real force behind it, Harry allowed himself to be drawn. He would help her if he could. He had to.

Unfortunately, he wasn't sure he would be wholly able to. Not with what she asked for.

Harry didn't know what urged him to speak of the little girl except that her expression, the tremble of her chin beneath the thumb that stuck firmly between her teeth mouth, wouldn't leave his mind. With knees drawn to his chest as usual, plate placed on the sill before him, Harry stared out the window from his usual seat in the alcove as night gradually settled upon Grimmauld Place.

"I had the Puppy Girl visit me today," he said, as always more to himself than to Malfoy. "She wanted me to save another dog but… it had already been dead for a while. I don't know how long exactly, because it's harder to tell the longer it's been. I don't even know how she found it in the first place."

Malfoy shifted behind him, his bed squeaking slightly and blankets rustling. Harry would have ignored the motion, except that Malfoy spoke. "What?"

Harry didn't turn. He leant into the window, forehead resting upon the glass. "Yeah. She always brings me to puppies. I think she wants me to save them. I don't know, maybe something in her life was tied to the idea? Maybe she had a puppy herself?" He shook his head, the glass squeaking beneath his brow. "I don't know. She can't talk to me."

The mattress creaked again. "What are you talking about?"

His voice was different. Harry wasn't sure what that difference was but he heard it. It wasn't as flat as usual and rather than the sarcastic, bitter edge that was the only other relief from flatness Harry had heard from him, he sounded almost curious.

Harry still didn't turn, but his ears pricked. He still didn't like Malfoy – how could he? Malfoy was a prat, even if he was worthy of compassion – but something like satisfaction welled within him that Malfoy might be vaguely interested. It seemed special somehow. Like Harry was doing something. Like, somehow, quite without knowing how, he was helping.

Harry hadn't even known he'd wanted to help until that moment. Keeping his promises was one thing. Actually wanting to help Malfoy was another entirely.

Harry had never spoken, really spoken, about his visitors before. Not with Hermione, nor with Ron when they'd still spoken themselves, even if he did mention them offhandedly when he slipped up. It felt a little strange to consider doing so, but Harry couldn't suppress the urge when it arose.

"There's this little girl," he said. "She came to visit me for the first time a couple of weeks ago. I don't know exactly why she can't let go and move on, but I'm trying to help her. She can't speak, I think because I never knew her and so we don't have that kind of connection, but she takes me to places. Always to puppies." Harry sighed. "I don't really know what to do to make her happy, but I'll keep trying."

Silence met his words. A suspended, thrumming silence that wasn't one so much of listlessness but of thoughtfulness. Harry couldn't help but glance over his shoulder towards Malfoy as it stretched. When he did, it was to find Malfoy unexpectedly still sitting propped up on his pillows rather than curled in upon himself as he usually was after a meal.

He watched Harry with a slight frown, and Harry watched him back. It was the first time he'd really looked at Malfoy in days, and he was vaguely satisfied to notice that he looked a little better than he had. Still too thin, he thought. The bags under his eyes still remained in dark smudges and his expression was still tight and drawn, but he looked better. Far better than he had.

Most of all, he didn't look dead. He didn't smell of Death so strongly anymore, even if the aroma did still linger. In Harry's opinion, that was the most important thing. The night Harry had first brought him to Grimmauld Place, he'd looked more dead than alive.

Now, he was… better. He was even mildly curious. He was awake, and frowning, and it wasn't with an irate glare as he sometimes managed to produce. He was actually alive.

"This girl," Malfoy said slowly. "She's dead?"

Harry blinked. Hadn't he said that? "Yes."

"Actually dead?"

"Yes."

"And you can… talk to her? And see her?"

Harry nodded. "It happens sometimes. When people die and can't move on because something's left undone, or something's keeping them here."

Malfoy's face paled in gradients, but it wasn't with the ashen sickliness he'd worn before. This was a different kind. "How?"

"I don't know," Harry said with utter honesty. He'd speculated, and Hermione, on the occasions when she'd agreed with him, had as well. He thought that maybe it had something to do with his own brief bout of Death, or that maybe his magic was strong but defective, unable to perform as traditional magic should, and so it pooled its efforts in a specific and unconventional direction. Both were equally likely and equally impossible to determine the correctness of.

"Is it…?" Malfoy paused, pushing himself a little higher upon his pillows. "Can you…?"

Harry blinked again. Through the shock, a strange light touched Malfoy's expression. It took Harry a moment to realise what it was but when he did it clicked into place like a struck gong. He shook his head. "No, Malfoy."

"What?"

"I can't." Harry wrapped his arms around his knees, resting his chin on top of them. "Sorry. Your mother stayed behind to make sure you were safe. Then she left. For good."

Malfoy flinched and suddenly it didn't matter whether Harry liked him or not. It didn't matter whether they'd been friends or rivals, or if Malfoy was a prat or secretly a nice person beneath his haughtiness. He looked so starkly human in that moment, so human and hurting. As his face fell and his shoulders slumped with it, Harry felt a rush of sympathy for him.

"Sorry," he said quietly.

Malfoy shook his head. In a sliding descent, he folded himself back into his blankets. Harry felt slightly disappointed for that retreat; it had felt, if only briefly, like Malfoy might have taken a turn for the better. But then…

 _Recovery won't happen instantly,_ Hermione had written in one of letters. _It will take a small step forwards, then a stall, then maybe one step backwards. It's our job – or yours, I suppose – to hold his hand to make sure he doesn't slide too far back_.

That was likely textbook-copied too, but Harry didn't mind. He thought that, at least in this instance, the supposition was correct.

Dropping his legs down from the sill, Harry slid to standing. He was about to make for the door, to leave Malfoy to his peace for the night, but something stopped him. It could have been their brief exchange, which was more than they'd shared in possibly ever. Or it could have been that, though Malfoy had curled back into his pillow, his expression hadn't returned to its usual blankness or the glaring that was his only exception to that emptiness.

Harry paused halfway to the door. "You know, Malfoy," he said casually, "you could take a turn out of this room for once. Stretch your legs. Maybe even come downstairs. It gets a little stuffy in here."

"I don't want to," came Malfoy's murmured reply.

Harry turned towards him, curious. He'd never asked before, even if he did suspect. "Why is that, exactly?"

"Because what's the point?"

Harry dropped his gaze down to the plate in his hand, the smear of gravy that congealed slightly on his remaining sausages. "I don't think it's healthy to stay in bed all day," he said, echoing something that Hermione had spoken to him once. It wasn't quite the same, but…

 _"I don't think you should be staying alone by yourself all day_ ," she'd said. Her helplessness for the situation yet ardent longing nonetheless had been thick in her words. " _Maybe you could… go out sometime?"_

Harry hadn't wanted to, and much of the time he still didn't want to. Even when a visitor needed him he rarely actually wanted to step outside of Grimmauld Place. Some days, it felt too overwhelming.

But he tried. For his visitors and for Hermione, to make her happy in a way he couldn't quite understand, Harry tried. Some days he even did feel better for it.

Malfoy, it seemed, was much of the same mind, if not exposed to the epiphany that Harry had undergone. "I never said I was healthy," Malfoy was saying in reply to Harry's words. "That's the problem. It would all just be easier if…"

He trailed off, and Harry frowned. He'd hoped that thoughts of that nature would have been vanquished form Malfoy's mind, but that was most likely wishful thinking. Too much to hope for. Too idealistic.

"That's not going to happen," he said, as much a promise to himself as anything. "Your mother asked you, remember?"

Malfoy sighed. He didn't even seem angry, and Harry saw his shoulders hunch slightly. "Yeah. I remember." Then he fell silent, and Harry didn't think he would speak again that night.

Harry didn't make the suggestion again after that. He didn't want to push Malfoy, he realised, and not because it jeopardised his promise. He simply didn't want to. The touch of defeat ringing in Malfoy's voice had been a little heartbreaking.

Besides, Malfoy was alive. Who was Harry to force him to actually live before he wanted to?

* * *

A/N: Thank you to all of my lovely readers, to those that have managed to stick with this story, and even more so to those who have left reviews! I can't tell you how encouraging it is to hear from you; if there's anything to inspire continuation, it's knowing that there's even one person enjoying this story.

Thanks again and I'll see you next time!


	6. Chapter 6 - Tripping In Place

A/N: Forewarning - existential crisis coming right up. Be wary!

* * *

 **Chapter 6: Tripping In Place**

"Get out! Get out now!"

Harry couldn't help but flinch from they woman's aggression, but it wasn't even truly because of her anger. It was the tears that struck him most. It was the pain that emanated from her blotchy face, spilling forth in dribbles that turned her eyes puffy and bared her teeth. Harry couldn't stand that.

Stumbling backwards, Harry hastily retreated from the house. He almost tripped down the short steps from the veranda, backing down the footpath and crashing into the wire gate that bordered the front garden. Harry barely felt the pain. His eyes were swimming with the face of the mourning woman as she glared at him with pain and anger and so, so much loss before slamming the door into her little terrace flat.

Harry couldn't spare a moment to stare at the house any longer. A part of him wanted to, but a bigger part begged to flee. He listened to that part, despite his guilt that demanded he persist, that he had a job to do, a responsibility. He ducked his head and strode away down the footpath dotted with morning walkers and children scurrying to school.

Tucking his chin, Harry wrapped his arms around himself. He felt like he had to, like if he didn't his guts would spill out into a macabre scene of disappointment and shame. He'd failed, and this one… It was a bad one. It was always going to be a bad one, but…

How had Harry never been approached by a suicide victim before Malfoy? It seemed cruelly poetic that he would be so shortly after he'd been exposed to the true pain it afflicted.

Squeezing himself tightly, the little note he'd copied from its original clutched beneath one armpit, Harry spared a glance for the girl at his side. She kept pace with him with that gliding, striding, slouching pace that only the dead could really manage, and the misery on her own face was ten times the force of Harry's own.

"I'm so sorry," he whispered. His fingers crumpled the note that he hadn't been able to give to her mother. "I tried, but…"

The girl's eyes weren't accusing. She looked horribly young for such world-weariness. She couldn't have been older than fifteen. Too young to die. Too young to want to die. She reached a hand towards Harry, and even through his jacket he could feel the chill of her fingers.

 _It's alright. You tried_.

She didn't speak the words, but Harry heard them. If anything, they made him feel worse. He'd failed. He'd truly failed. She'd asked for help, and he hadn't… he couldn't…

Sometimes he did. That part wasn't foreign. It just felt worse because this time it had struck close to home. Harry hadn't realised just how deeply Malfoy's actions had affected him until that moment.

The girl flickered out of existence between one breath and the next. She didn't fade with finality like Narcissa had, nor with the peaceful smile of the old man who'd visited Harry three days before. She was simply there one moment and gone the next.

Harry knew what that meant. She was gone, but not forever. She needed Harry's help, but Harry didn't know how to give it.

His eyes had blurred into near-blindness and then cleared again by the time he reached Grimmauld Place. He'd walked the length of the city, the three-hour trek from the girl's home and her mourning family. The increasingly cold autumnal air had done little to ease the constriction around his chest. Harry hadn't taken a proper breath for the entire journey.

He stepped into the darkness of the Black Family house and a little of that weight eased with its stale familiarity. Even more so when Kreacher appeared with a crack a moment later. That touch of the normal, that not everything had shattered because – _failed, I failed, I couldn't help her –_ was calming. Harry took a deep breath of the stagnant air.

Before he could say a word – though he didn't have any to say – Kreacher spoke. "Master is looking unwell," he grumbled, squinting up at Harry. "Master should rest."

Harry closed his eyes. Raising his hands, he linked his fingers behind his neck and bowed his head. "I'm fine."

"Master is not fine. He is being very rarely fine."

Harry shook his head, blinking his eyes open. There was no reasoning with an overprotective house elf. "How's Malfoy?" he asked, only then realising that he'd missed both breakfast and lunch with him.

Kreacher's eyes narrowed further and he shook his head, but his reply wasn't concerning. "The Malfoy brat has partaken of his breakfasts and luncheon as he should, yes he has. Kreacher has been sitting with him and watching him to be certain for the entire times."

Harry smiled faintly. Overprotective or not, grouching and grumbling or not, and even with the tumultuous history they shared, Kreacher had grown on Harry. Many a day he'd been the only living company Harry had. It was impossible for him not to affect him even if that affect was more akin to the growth of a discomforting but accepted mole.

"Thanks, Kreacher," Harry said. Sighing, he dropped his arms and trudged towards the stairwell.

"Master will be resting?" Kreacher asked, a hopeful note touching his voice.

Harry didn't pause as he began to climb the steps. "Maybe later," he said. "Yeah. Maybe later." Then he ascended the stairs and slipped quietly into one of the many abandoned rooms.

And he painted.

Painting had never been a skill of Harry's. Once, he never would have considered himself inclined to pursing any kind of art, painting or otherwise. But number twelve Grimmauld Place was old, and the walls were dark. That pervasive darkness had weighed upon Harry like the niggling chewing of a gnat in his ear.

So Harry painted. At first, it had just been white. White walls, white ceilings, almost painfully bright. Kreacher had predictably protested – or he had until Harry had told him that he liked it and it made him happy to see the darkness alleviated a little. Kreacher hadn't said a word against the paint after that.

When precisely that block painting had sharpened to doodling, then sketching, then progressed to actual murals, Harry didn't know. He couldn't pinpoint the moment. It seemed that, somehow, he'd just picked up a brush and started.

He found it helped. It helped a lot. When Harry hurt, or he'd failed, or the weight of the Weasley's absence rubbed him especially raw, he painted. Just for a time, that weight was lifted. That day, as Harry stepped into the master bedroom that Buckbeak had once inhabited and turned to the empty wall spreading white and expectant before him, he was seven rooms and countless paintings into his escape into art.

He wasn't an expert. Harry didn't even know if he was any good. Hermione had seen them once, the first time Harry had become so lost in painting that he'd forgotten she was visiting that day, and she'd found him painting an image of a fantastical bookshelf on the back of the library door. He was lost in the half-drawn pages of a flying novel when she'd gasped behind him.

"Harry," she'd whispered. "What are you doing?"

Could Harry explain it? No. Not really. He didn't try, and when he didn't try Hermione didn't ask further. She simply accepted, as she did so many things.

With the weight of the dead girl and her grieving family curled around his mind, Harry turned to his blank wall. He had a vague idea – of wings and feathers and sharp claws. He didn't know if he would manage to achieve the end product, but he would try. For just a little while, Harry would reach for something that was attainable, and he would forget.

Crouching before a collection of tins and an easel left discarded on the floor, Harry picked up a brush he'd wiped and abandoned days before. Without further thought, he stepped up to the wall and dove into the image.

That was how Malfoy found him an immeasurable time later.

Harry hardly saw the wall anymore. He barely saw anything but the brush with its strokes and the trail of black it left behind it. Shapes were forming, but the greater whole was still all but a mystery to Harry. Somewhere, on the edges of his awareness, Harry could hear the sound of the old record player humming its constant tunes through the ceiling. He could feel the chill of descending night touch his skin but largely left him untouched, as the cold always did. The smell of dust, ever-present in the old house, was a comforting musk in Harry's nostrils, and the feeling…

He didn't feel happier, precisely, but calmer. Contained. The weight of the girl he hadn't been able to help as he hadn't countless others before still weighed upon his shoulders and invited him to curl miserably upon the floor, but with brush in hand and gaze glued upon the pale wall made paler in the encroaching darkness, Harry could ignore the demands for a time.

The door opened behind him, but Harry only detachedly noticed. The sound of footfalls, quiet and little more than the scuffle of toes on floorboards, halted after a moment, but Harry didn't glance over his shoulder. He paused, regarded a sweeping curve of paint upon the wall, dipped his brush again, and continued.

Malfoy didn't speak for a long time. Harry knew it was him, because Kreacher didn't disturb him when he painted. He knew, and yet Harry didn't bother to glance his way. He didn't pause, didn't turn towards the doorway, didn't… didn't _care_. What should Harry care for the living that could sort through their own problems eventually?

The sound of a slump against the wall, the slide of a body down that wall, and then Malfoy's sigh followed the extended pause. And Harry painted. Malfoy shifted, scuffling against something – and Harry continued to paint, stroking the old walls made anew with white wash. And finally, finally…

"Where were you today?"

Harry paused, though not because of Malfoy's words. Dabbing at his easel, his brush drew little enough paint, so he turned and dropped to his haunches beside the cluster of paint tins and refilled it. "I was out."

"Out?"

"Trying to help someone."

"Someone…" Malfoy trailed off. Harry returned to his painting, an increasingly challenging task as night swallowed the remaining light in the room. After a long pause in which Harry all but forgot his company, Malfoy continued. "Was it a dead person?"

On a detached level, Harry was surprised that Malfoy had guessed. He'd rarely mentioned his visitors in his aimless rambles that Malfoy may or may not have even been listening to most of the time. He hadn't expected him to recall when he actually had spoken of them.

Where his mind currently sat, however, Harry didn't really care. "Yes," he said.

"Oh. Did you?"

"Did I what?"

"Manage to help them."

Harry's hand stuttered mid draw, smearing the paint slightly. He stared at the fanning smudge, brush lowering. "No," he said quietly.

"Oh."

Silence ensued once more but Harry couldn't bring himself to raise his brush. Before him, the hours of his distraction-seeking had built the vague outline of a hippogriff, wings spread and figure consuming the better half of the wall. Harry wasn't proud of his work. Not really. Not when there was something to be decidedly un-proud of resting on the edges of his awareness.

"Does that make you sad, then?"

Harry blinked. Slowly, he turned for the first time.

Malfoy sat with his back against one white wall. His legs were stretched out before him, his head tilted backwards to rest on the wall, and he looked nothing if not lazily dozing. The slacks and shirt Harry had given him days before were bunched around his knees and elbows, his hair as much a mess as it had been since Harry had first found him, and a part of Harry recognised that as being a little wrong. Malfoy wasn't supposed to be careless and slovenly. That wasn't who he'd been – or wasn't who Harry had thought he was.

But each feature Harry had already familiarised himself with, just as he'd deduced that Malfoy wasn't the same person he'd known from school. He still glared at Harry on occasion, was still objectionable, if only for simple defiance against properly living, but otherwise he was different. Quieter. Drained of who he'd been.

Harry didn't think it was only because of his mother's death. Not anymore. He could still smell the hint of Malfoy's own death hanging around him, if a little more faintly every day. That was a good thing, Harry supposed. A good thing, and as much because it meant that he was less of Harry's problem very day.

 _The sooner he leaves the sooner he's not around and that… that will be better. For both of us_. Harry acknowledged that thought even as a part of his reminded that Malfoy still had a long way to go. He simply wasn't feeling particularly charitable that evening.

"What kind of a question is that?" Harry finally said, turning back to his paint tins. He dropped to his knees again, swirling his brush in a cup of waiting water that had been sitting stagnantly for days.

"It was just a question," Malfoy said.

"Yeah, and it was a stupid one."

"You're angry?"

Harry stabbed the brush into the cup of water more violently than necessary. A splatter of water leapt over the rim. "No, Malfoy. I'm not angry. I'm…"

"Upset, then?"

Harry closed his eyes. Pressing his lips together, he drew a slow, deep breath and shook his head. "No," he muttered, and it sounded like a warbling lie even to his own ears.

Malfoy shifted against the wall once more. Harry didn't glance his way again, spending far more of his attention than was needed upon the act of cleaning and wiping his tools. Malfoy was, surprisingly, the one to continue.

"Have I upset you?" he asked quietly.

Pausing, Harry frowned down at his half-cleaned easel. "What?"

"Is that why you didn't come today?"

Harry turned towards him. "What? Why I didn't –?"

Malfoy's head was bowed, his gaze downcast. His hands rested limply in his lap. "I thought maybe you'd grown tired of visiting. When you didn't come for breakfast or lunch, I thought –" He faltered, and Harry caught a glimpse of a sneer cross his face. It looked a little heartbreaking when it was self-directed rather than cast towards someone else. "It's stupid."

Harry truly didn't care for Malfoy. Or he mostly didn't. He didn't think he did, anyway. But at Malfoy's words, he couldn't help but fall prey to a hint of curiosity. It was enough that, for a second, his memory of the girl who'd visited him that morning withdrew just a little more.

"What are you talking about?" Harry said. Shaking his head, he dropped his easel to the floor and turned more fully towards Malfoy. "Just because I didn't come for a meal or two doesn't mean I've buggered off."

Malfoy uttered a little snort that could have been a laugh but seemed far too solemn for such. "Good to know for future reference."

"Did that… make you sad?"

For a second, Malfoy seemed to shrink slightly upon himself, his bony shoulders hitching. Then his gaze flickered up briefly towards Harry's. "You're not the same person you used to be," he all but whispered.

"No," Harry said. "And neither are you."

"You wouldn't have cared what happened to me a long time ago."

Harry opened his mouth to reply, to point out that he didn't truly care all that much now and that he was mostly acting on Narcissa's request. But the words died on his tongue as a murmur to the false nature of such an admission arose. No, he didn't care for Malfoy – mostly. But there was a part that did. And maybe it wasn't just because of Narcissa and their promise.

The thought caught Harry a little by surprise. Had he just been telling himself he didn't care so much that he believed it, even when it wasn't true?

"That's not true," Harry said, as much to his own thoughts as Malfoy's words. "At the battle of Hogwarts, I –"

"You saved my life," Malfoy said. He nodded. "I remember. It was more of an 'in the heat of the moment' kind of rescue, though, I assume. I don't think even then you would be the kind of person to come to my aid because my mother asked it of you."

Harry didn't know about that. He didn't know what he would have done. Malfoy was right; he was a different person to who he'd once been.

Shrugging, Harry settled himself on his haunches, drawing his legs to his chest and hooking his arms loosely around his knees. "Maybe. Maybe not. We'll never know, I guess."

Malfoy had bowed his head again. He was silent for a long moment, and Harry didn't interrupt that silence. He waited, because this, at least, he could do. Silence and watchfulness was something he'd grown accustomed to with his visitors; oftentimes, he needed to listen to unspoken signs rather than words to discern what was being asked of him.

Malfoy's signs were clear enough: _Wait. I've got to get something out_.

So Harry waited. Eventually, Malfoy spoke.

"I've had, ah… depression for some time," he said slowly. "My mother took me to a mind-healer who had me diagnosed, if little else. Mother was the only one who helped me when I struggled, because I… I did struggle."

Each word seemed to be a struggle, as though Malfoy were forcibly dragging the words from himself. Harry didn't interrupt him. He didn't know why Malfoy had suddenly chosen to speak his thoughts, but he wasn't about to disrupt the decision. Malfoy wouldn't be speaking unless he needed to let it out. That he'd felt he could to Harry – or had perhaps simply needed to speak – was reason enough to listen.

"The mind-healer turned out to be a lying, cheating bastard," Malfoy continued lowly. "He was interested in Mother's money, but in actually helping me? No. Not the son of a Death Eater, and an alleged Death Eater himself." A small, bitter chuckle hitched Malfoy's breath. "Mother took the situation in hand herself. She got the authority from the healer to access the potions I needed, and then we left him."

Sighing, Malfoy raised a hand to his face. "My mother was the one who did everything for me. I'm been little more than a burden to her ever since Father was convicted, but she never once faltered. She did all of it, withstood everything for my sake, and now she's…" He swallowed so thickly Harry could hear him from across the room. "You know there's no point to me, Potter. I know you do. If it wasn't because of your – your damned promise with her…"

He trailed off, and Harry didn't even have to peer closely at him to see the surfacing of tears. Malfoy didn't even seem like he cared to hide them.

And that was the crux of it, Harry supposed. He didn't really understand this thing called depression. He didn't understand how it could make someone lose the will to live enough that they actively sought their own death. He didn't know how Malfoy could spend hours lying abed for days on end, lost in his own thoughts, because there was always something to do, always people to help, and even if Harry lost himself sometimes, he knew he had to return because people existed that needed him to.

But it didn't really matter that he didn't understand. It didn't matter that Harry didn't know how to help Malfoy, which, quite suddenly and unexpectedly, Harry realised he wanted to do a little bit for Malfoy as well as for Narcissa. Malfoy was pathetic, and he was struggling, and he was lost, but for all that he'd given up weeks before and attempted to embrace a horror that Harry couldn't even consider, he was trying. He really was.

After all, he'd come out of his room. Harry hadn't truly thought he would ever do that. Not with how he was. But Malfoy was _trying_ , and it was all for a mother who'd died less than a month before.

"I don't think," Harry said slowly, "that having an innate purpose is the main reason we're supposed to be alive."

Malfoy lifted his chin just slightly. The wetness in his eyes hadn't dissipated, and there was a touch of colour to his cheeks, though from embarrassment or the headiness of emotion, Harry didn't know. "Then what's the point of it all?"

Harry shrugged. "To make a point, I guess."

"What?"

"Everyone is useless if they don't try," Harry said, leaning forward slightly until his chin rested upon his knees. "It's about how much effort we're prepared to put into that trying, isn't it?"

Malfoy regarded him, and like a retreating tide, Harry saw his tears begin to withdraw. "And you?"

"And me what?"

"You're trying?"

Harry's embrace tightened around his knees. "I try. I try bloody hard, because people need me to."

"Dead people," Malfoy said.

Had there been a hint of derision in his voice, Harry would have leapt to his feet and left Malfoy behind him as he departed the room. But there wasn't. Not even a whisper. That was surely different to the Malfoy he remembered. "I think dead people are the ones that need the help the most," Harry said quietly. "They can't help themselves, after all. Not like those who are alive."

Malfoy stared at him with the slightest of frowns. It wasn't angry or accusing but rather thoughtful, as though he thought Harry was an interesting study he hadn't considered before. Harry didn't much like being so observed, but then, Malfoy hadn't shown much interest in anything of late. He supposed he could withstand it if Malfoy could remain afloat for a little while because of it.

"You're surprisingly wise, you know, Potter," he said after a long pause.

Harry snorted. "Not really."

"At least in this instance you are."

"One in a million, maybe."

Malfoy lifted a shoulder. "You're trying," he said, tossing Harry's words back at him in a surprisingly gentle manner. "That's the part that you said matters, right? And I think you might be wise, even if it's damned surprising to think so." He shook his head. "Most people don't even consider dead people after they'd gone unless they were something to them when they were alive."

"I know," Harry said. "It's sad."

"And even those people are forgotten after a time."

"Maybe, but that's just the way it works."

Malfoy opened his mouth, then closed it again. He seemed to struggle for a moment, and Harry was left to ponder in the silence just how strange their circumstances were. Not only was Malfoy talking to him, but he was awake. He was out of his room. He was moving, and he actually showed a hint of… not enthusiasm, but something. Life, perhaps.

"Then what's the point?" Malfoy finally asked, and there was a faint plea in his words. It was as though he desperately needed Harry to have the answers for him. "What's the point of it all if… if you're just going to…"

"Be forgotten?" Harry supplied. He shrugged. "I guess that's something you'll have to figure out for yourself."

"I don't know if I can do that."

"Some people can't."

"I suppose those are the ones that end up killing themselves, then?"

Harry twitched slightly. He still didn't like to consider such things. He doubted he ever would, but especially not that day. "No. The ones who kill themselves are the people who don't have anyone around them to stop them."

Malfoy closed his eyes briefly. "The people who are alone?"

"Yes."

"Like me."

Harry frowned. "What am I exactly, then?"

Malfoy cracked an eye open. "What?"

"If you're alone, then what does that make me?" As Malfoy continued to stare at him, his frown deepened. "You know, the fact that you noticed I wasn't around today kind of made me think you realised I actually shared every meal with you. How do you figure you're alone if I'm around?"

Malfoy stared at him. His eyes widened slightly, then his face flicking through a series of expressions that Harry couldn't fully discern. Harry stared back at him and waited until, with a sigh, Malfoy shook his head. "You have no idea what you just said, do you?"

Harry blinked. "What?"

"You have no idea what that means. That you think I'm not… that you would…"

"What are you talking about?" Harry said with a sigh of his own. Then he shook his head and heaved himself to his feet without giving Malfoy a chance to answer. "Actually, never mind. It doesn't matter. Just – come on."

"Come on where?" Malfoy asked, not making a move to rise from his slump against the wall.

"To get something for dinner," Harry replied. He didn't feel much like it himself, even if the heaviness of his morning's failure had shifted aside. Malfoy should probably eat. He was still too thin, even if he seemed healthier than he had been. "We can actually eat at a table for once."

Malfoy stared up at him as Harry started towards the door. He shook his head slowly. "I don't think," he began.

"Malfoy," Harry cut him off, pausing alongside him. "Don't."

"Don't what?"

"Don't just disappear back into that room again. Not yet." Harry held out a hand to him, a passive offering that he'd never even considered before. It didn't feel as strange as he might have thought it would. "Come and have dinner with me. After all, it's better to eat in company, right?"

Malfoy stared at his outstretched hand for a long moment. His eyes flickered between Harry's fingers and his face, confusion and another flickering series of unreadable emotions crossing his face. Then, slowly, almost hesitantly, he reached a hand for Harry's and allowed himself to be drawn to his feet.

It might have been that Malfoy agreed with Harry's sentiment about dinner. Or it might have been that he wanted the company as Harry thought may have been what had ultimately drawn him from his room in the first place. Or it may have been something else entirely – Harry's all-but demand, the discomfort of the floorboards, resignation, or even a previously unexperienced hunger. Harry didn't know.

But Malfoy did follow him, and for the first time, they shared dinner with a semblance of normalcy.

* * *

A/N: Thank you for reading! I hope you're enjoying the story so far (although enjoying might be a questionable way to put it). Thank you to all of my lovely reviewers. I so completely appreciate each and every word left behind and I can't thank you enough.


	7. Chapter 7 - Flung Backwards

A/N: Okay. So. I feel like I always add these disclaimers, but I really feel like I need to say them.  
The thoughts and opinions of the characters in this chapter, and their reactions, are not necessarily my own. Just to emphasise that. Prepare for the wincing and the 'please stop saying that'-ing.

But otherwise, enjoy!

* * *

 **Chapter 7: Flung Backwards**

It went well. After the first night Malfoy left his room, it went unexpectedly well.

For a time.

But just as Hermione had warned, a step forward was often accompanied by a following step backwards. Harry hadn't known what to expect, but an explosive fight? That wasn't it.

He was having a bad day. Not that Harry didn't often have bad days; more surprising were the good days, the successful ones, the ones where a visitor appeared and he could actually help them. Winter was slowly encroaching upon London, not quite arrived but nipping on the heels of retreating autumn. Harry trudged up the street alone but for the company of a silent visitor that pleaded at him with mute mournfulness.

Harry paused at the stunted path leading up to number twelve. He turned with heavy eyes towards the middle-aged man who similarly paused, and met his eyes as they faded in hopefulness. "I'm sorry," he said. It felt so inadequate that Harry almost bit his tongue off. Swallowing thickly, he dropped his gaze to the simple gate his fingers curled around like a lifeline as if it could support him, could help him.

It couldn't. No gate, however strong, could prop Harry up, and it certainly couldn't help the dead man. "I didn't know you, so they won't… they won't let me…"

He trailed off. The guilt that welled within him wasn't lessened by the fact that he knew it wasn't entirely his fault. Personal finances were a private matter at best, and savings were horded by banks like misers with their gold. A person who actually owned that money had enough trouble accessing the numbers. What chance did Harry have when he was acting on behalf of another?

His inadequacy wasn't even because he knew little about Muggle banks and the banking system. Harry understood enough to know that this man, the Muggle standing beside him with mournful eyes and clutching a repayment notification to his chest as though he'd held it when he'd died – he couldn't help him.

It wasn't because he didn't want to. It wasn't because he didn't understand how much the man's family needed the help.

It wasn't because he was oblivious to the meaning of the words 'repossession' and 'final warning'. That a dead man's family would be cast out for Harry's incompetence… it hurt. It ached, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Harry might not be inclined towards helping people who were alive, but he wasn't heartless. The thought of a mother and two children struggling again the inevitable hurt on a level deeper than muscle and tissue. And he _couldn't do anything._

Closing his eyes briefly, Harry squeezed the gate in a bid for strength. "I'll talk to my friend," he muttered. He couldn't bring himself to glance towards the man again. "She might know what to do. She's a solicitor, so… I'll try. I don't know what I can do, but I'll try."

For a long moment, Harry stood in silence. The mournful whisper of wind chasing down the length of Grimmauld Place, dragging a film of blanketing night after it, seemed to echo his melancholy. When Harry finally raised his gaze and turned towards the man, he'd already disappeared.

 _But not for good_ , he thought. _He'll be back, because I didn't help him. I didn't do anything._ With a silent sigh, Harry pushed the gate open and trudged towards the front door.

Within the Black family residence, the hallway was as dark and gloomy as ever. Comfortingly so, Harry had long found. He kicked his shoes off and padded down the hallway towards the library. He couldn't help himself; he needed his mother, and even without knowing if she would be there, he had to check.

Harry had never understood if his parents and Padfoot felt his need. He didn't know if his silent pleas for their company called that insubstantial part of them that remained, begging them to step forth from wherever they waited and seat themselves in the library, or the kitchen, or upon the front doorstep. When Harry paused inside the doorway, however, it was to find Lily seated in her usual armchair and turning towards him expectantly.

She smiled softly, and though Harry didn't let himself cry, he felt the urge well within him and briefly blur his eyes. "Sweetheart," was all Lily said, rising to her feet and crossing the distance in an instant. Her cool, insubstantial hand stroked his face in a way that he was so familiar. It felt like fingers of ice, but Harry didn't mind. He liked this cold.

Closing his eyes, Harry tipped his head to rest against the door frame. He let his eyes slide closed. "I couldn't help him," he whispered.

"Mm," Lily hummed in reply.

"He had a family. Two kids. They were never well-off to start with, and since he died…"

"Mm."

"I don't know what to do in these situations." Harry sighed, opening his eyes to meet his mother's sympathetic gaze. "I'm useless."

"You're all they have," Lily whispered back, her voice as quiet as ever.

"Fuck load of good I am, though."

"You're far better than nothing."

"Am I?"

"Of course. You give them hope, if nothing else. Even without success, how many have been able to pass onward simply knowing that you tried?"

Harry didn't like to consider that question. It hurt in ways that mulling over Death only caused him to ache more deeply. When they found him, Harry tried. Most of the time he failed, and sometimes his visitors would pass anyway. What kind of a person was he that he failed the dead so badly that they gave up on him?

Unbidden, the thought of Malfoy rose in Harry's mind. _What's the point?_ Malfoy had asked him more times that Harry could count. He never asked in defiance of Harry's suggestions, but almost as though he needed to know. As though he longed for an answer. _I'm useless and I'm not good for anything. So what's the point?_

The point, as Harry had attempted to explain, was to try. To keep trying because that _was_ the point. Harry clung to that notion as much as he enforced it to Malfoy. He'd forced himself to believe it over the years. It was the only way he could continue without crumpling under the weight of his incompetence.

Harry might not be able to relate to much of Malfoy's thoughts or what drove him to act as he did, but that – that part he understood.

"That's somehow less reassuring that I think it's supposed to be," Harry finally muttered, because Lily was his mum and she was allowed to hear his doubts.

Lily's smile grew rueful. "I know. This visitor today – he left?"

Harry nodded, his forehead scratching the old wood of the doorframe. "Temporarily."

"Do you have a plan of what you can do?"

"I was just going to ask Hermione," he said. He swallowed, straightening slightly. Even speaking his plan to someone who didn't appear so heartbreakingly desperate as the man made him feel a little better. "She might have some ideas."

"I'm so happy you have her."

"I'm lucky," Harry said with a small smile of her own. "She keeps me sane – or at least helps me retain what sanity I still have."

"Do you?"

Startling, Harry glanced over his shoulder. He shouldn't be surprised by an abrupt voice from someone he hadn't noticed; his visitors always moved silently, and those that spoke as often as not did so unexpectedly. But Malfoy? Harry should have noticed him. He wondered if he would ever grow accustomed to having him in the house. He wondered if he even should. How long Malfoy would be around, Harry had no idea but… it couldn't be forever. If Harry knew anything, it was that it couldn't be forever. Such a situation would only be ultimately harmful. To both of them.

Malfoy had paused on the bottom step of the stairwell, leaning against the bannister as though to support himself. His was planted almost exactly where Fred usually appeared, seated with his elbows propped upon his knees. A flicker of discomfort for the thought – because that was _Fred's_ spot – rose within Harry before he forced it aside. He pushed himself from the doorframe, turning more towards him.

Each day, Malfoy seemed a little better. Harry didn't know what to expect, how fast Malfoy was supposed to recover or if he even would, but he did seem better. His face seemed less grey and more simply pale. His frame was less sickly thin and more angular in a manner reminiscent of his younger self. He was still too skinny, the impression made even more pronounced for the too-short slacks Harry had leant him that he still wore, but it wasn't disconcertingly noticeable.

Most importantly, however, Malfoy was out of bed. He was out of his room. Harry didn't know what precisely had triggered his emergence – could speculate but wasn't certain – but he was grateful. Malfoy rarely appeared for anything other than mealtimes, but that was something. He was usually punctual for those meals, too. Harry had only needed to search for him a handful of times in the past days.

Which meant that it must be nearly dinnertime. Harry hadn't noticed. As always happened following a disappointing failure to help his visitors, Harry had lost track of time. His belly rejected the thought of eating, and escape to the master bedroom he was still painting or the attic with its quiet emptiness beckoned him with promise of comforting distraction. Harry would have readily embraced its calling, except –

Malfoy stood before him. Even if Harry knew precious little of what went on inside his head, he knew that his company was at least part of the reason Malfoy came out of his room at all. That he enjoyed Harry's company specifically was unlikely, but any port in a storm would likely be approached with open arms. Definitely for someone as grasping and desperate as Malfoy seemed. It was the same reason Harry received so many desperate visitors that he couldn't help.

Strangely enough, helping Malfoy felt a little bit the same. Not exactly, because no matter how Harry looked at it, Malfoy wasn't dead. The smell of Death that shrouded him continued to fade every day, and it felt good to notice. Nice to realise that Harry was somehow, without knowing how, helping Malfoy. Narcissa might have been the reason he'd done so in the first place, but Harry was growing increasingly aware of the fact that he would continue to help his once-rival regardless of that promise.

Harry cared. Only a little, but he did care.

With a glance towards Lily where she regarded Malfoy over Harry's shoulder, Harry frowned drew his attention back to Malfoy's interrupting words. "What do you mean?" he asked.

Malfoy plucked at the thin fabric covering his knee. "I meant, do you still have your sanity? After everything, I suppose – I mean, to most people, you appear to be talking to yourself."

Harry glanced towards Lily once more. She smiled slightly before, with a small shrug, turned and drifted back to her armchair with a gliding step. Harry didn't want her to leave, but her departure wasn't quite so uncomfortable as it might have once been. It felt less stark when Malfoy was demanding his attention.

"I know how it looks," Harry said, turning slowly back to Malfoy. "Most people think the same as you."

"The same as me?"

"That I'm crazy," Harry supplied. "For talking to people who don't seem to be here –"

"I didn't say I thought that," Malfoy interrupted quietly. "Merely that most people would."

Harry fell silent. It was statements like that, entirely lacking in provocation, that left him floundering. He knew his social fitness had lagged in his isolation, but he could usually navigate a conversation if it was brief enough. But with Malfoy… the contrast to the sneering, spitting boy he'd been was oftentimes startling. Malfoy was quieter. A little listless, but also calmer. Harry couldn't quite decide whether it was a good thing or not.

"You don't think so?" Harry asked curiously.

Malfoy continued to pluck at his knee. His gaze was trained upon his fingers, though from disinterest in Harry or some kind of awkwardness, Harry wasn't sure. "I believe you, you know. About the… the dead people. That you can see them."

Harry blinked. It wasn't the first time Malfoy had alluded to as much over the past few days, but it was the first he'd spoken in so many words. "You do?"

Malfoy nodded.

"That's unexpected."

"How so?" Malfoy frowned at his fingers where a nail dug into the old, polished wood of the bannister. "I would think it would be more unexpected if someone in my situation didn't believe you. It's a little hard not to."

"Talking to the dead is impossible," Harry said, quoting Ron from the first time he'd really discussed Fred with him. It hadn't ended well.

"Ghosts," Malfoy supplied shortly.

"This is different."

"How?" Finally, Malfoy raised his gaze. His eyes narrowed slightly, but Harry didn't think he seemed angry. "What makes them different from ghosts?"

Harry dropped his own gaze to his toes. The greyness of dust that likely already smeared his soles had begun to spread up the sides of his feet, darkening the whiteness. Harry chose to think about that instead of the answer to Malfoy's question: that his visitors felt different. That while ghost and portraits and memories were of a person captured at the moment of their death or when their likeness was being painted, his visitors were something else. They grew, changed, and remembered. They were a part of a person that couldn't quite leave rather than a copy of them.

That made it all the more important to help them.

"They just feel different," Harry said quietly.

For a long moment, neither of them spoke. Harry was used to such silences. Oftentimes, even if Malfoy was more partial to talking of late than he had been, he would go through a meal without a word before retreating to his room. Harry accepted his muteness. He wasn't used to talking during his meals anyway.

But Malfoy did speak then. Quite aside from the barely-there curiosity that he seemed to show for anything, a touch of inquisitiveness laced his words. "Who was it?"

Harry flickered his eyes towards him sidelong. "What?"

"That you were talking to," Malfoy clarified. "Who was it?"

Harry's eyes darted towards Lily's armchair. A pang of sadness arose within him briefly when he realised she was gone. "My mother," he said quietly.

"Your mother?" Malfoy sounded almost surprised at that. It was the most distinct emotion besides than grief Harry had heard from him since he'd found him weeks before. "But hasn't she…? Wasn't she…?"

"She's been dead for twenty-two years, yes," Harry said, assuming the words that Malfoy couldn't say. A weight settled upon his shoulders for them and abruptly Harry didn't want to speak of it anymore. He didn't want to pursue a discussion that could lead to contemplating just why his mother and father – and Padfoot, for that matter – remained at his side. It hurt to consider, triggering its own world of guilt.

Shaking himself slightly, Harry started down the hallway towards Malfoy. "It's dinnertime, right?" he said, ignoring Malfoy's slight frown with the change of subject. "You want it down here, or…?"

He trailed off suggestively. Harry might not know much about depression or those suffering from it, but Hermione had mentioned that urging people like Malfoy to participate more actively in his life and decisions could be of benefit. Who was Harry to question her suggestion?

Malfoy's frown settled a little heavier for a moment as his gaze turned absently towards the stairwell leading into the basement alongside him. "Why do you always eat in the kitchen?" he asked finally.

Harry cocked his head. "What do you mean?"

"You have a dining hall. Why you don't eat there."

Despite the weight still resting heavily upon him, Harry almost felt himself smile. No, he didn't know much about recovery. He didn't know how to help Malfoy, or what signs would suggest that he was getting better. But his words? The fact that he'd wondered at all? For whatever reason, Harry somehow felt a touch of satisfaction for it.

Even if it did call forth unwanted memories.

"I just always have," he said. "My godfather did, so… It's tradition, I guess."

Malfoy had turned his regard towards the dining hall that Harry had barely ever stepped into, but his gaze fwll back to his fingers and their plucking after barely a moment. "Oh," was all he said.

Harry pursed his lips. "Would –? I guess, if you wanted to have it there, then that's okay."

"I don't care," Malfoy said. His words sounded remarkably less petulant than they could have. Harry couldn't detect much beside true disinterest at all.

"Then why did you ask?"

Malfoy raised a shoulder. "Family tradition on my own end, I suppose. Mother –" He paused, his voice catching, before taking a deep breath and ploughing on. "My mother and father always insisted upon dining properly. It has felt somehow wrong to do otherwise these past weeks."

"Why didn't you tell me, then?" Harry asked quietly.

Malfoy gave another shrug. "Because I couldn't do otherwise these past weeks."

There was no real reply necessary for that. Not from Harry. He accepted the admission for what it was, rejected the urge to comment upon what Malfoy clearly felt discomforted by, and shifted his attention towards the basement steps.

"Kreacher," he called.

Kreacher appeared with a crack alongside him in an instant. He acknowledged Harry with a dip of his head. "Master and the Malfoy brat will be taking their tea?"

Malfoy had never seemed perturbed by Kreacher's term of address, so Harry let it slide as usual. "Please," he said. "But could we have it in the dining hall tonight?"

Harry had rarely seen Kreacher excited. He hadn't really known he could be. But Kreacher's eyes widened slightly and his shrivelled lips parted with something of a gasp. He was nodding vigorously a moment later. "Yes, yes, Master Potter. Of course, Kreacher will be bringing tea to the dining hall immediately, sir. What a wondrous thing, just as he is supposed to. Master Potter is making a very good decision, yes he is. A very, very good decision."

Then, with sprightliness bellying his age and creaking bones, Kreacher was scuttling down the stairs in a flurry of thuds. That enthusiasm – it could have something to do with his servitude of a real person again, or because apparently Harry's fulfilment of the 'right' way of doing things was affecting him. From Malfoy's words, Harry supposed that 'dining properly' was something of a pureblood form of etiquette.

Or it could have been something else entirely. It could have something to do with the fact that the aged cloak that had always muffled Kreacher's shoulders in a tight embrace, the smell of Death that Harry had first noticed over four years before had retreated slightly in the years since. Harry didn't want to think about that, or whether it was a good thing or not. He didn't want to consider what it meant at all.

Shunting the thought aside, Harry turned from the clattering in the kitchen basement towards the dining hall opposite the library. "Okay, then," he muttered, more to himself than to Malfoy. "I suppose we'll just..." He trailed off before padding into the room.

It was a long room. Dark, if no more shadowed than the rest of the building. Black and rich brown timber composed the length of the stretching table, the cabinet with its antique china pristinely maintained by Kreacher's specific dutifulness, and the hanging chandelier more modest than it could have been but still grander than Harry felt comfortable with. The sight of it all, the grandeur and refinement that Harry had never wanted a part of, abruptly added to the weight seeming to drag him down. It suddenly seemed far too much to carry that day.

The visitor and his failure. Lily's temporary visit cut short. The thought of a conversation with Hermione to come wherein she would tiptoe around disbelief of just why he was asking legal questions pertaining to loans and property repossessions. Harry found he had little energy to spare for Malfoy anymore, and flopped into the nearest seat.

Malfoy paused just inside the doorway. Harry watched wearily as he drew his gaze around the room, expression blank but not quite as listless as that he'd worn more often than not since he'd come to Grimmauld Place.

"This," Malfoy said quietly. "It reminds me of my own manor."

"Understandably, I guess," Harry said, dragging a leg up to tuck against his chest. He rested his chin heavily atop his knee. "You're related to the Black family, aren't you?"

"Yes," Malfoy barely, barely a murmur, and began a slow circumnavigation of the room.

Harry watched as he grazed his hand over the backs of the chairs. He followed the line of Malfoy's gaze as he briefly inspected the glass-fronted cabinets with their immaculately-lined china. After a moment, Harry closed his eyes. It was strangely comfortable, losing himself in the shuffling whisper of Malfoy's footsteps, the click of a door as he opened a cabinet that Harry had never looked into himself.

He heard when Kreacher arrived, smelt the wafting flavour of something distinctly cheesy, and heard the clatter of plates set upon the table. Harry wondered momentarily whether he would be able to stomach anything at all. He just wanted to sleep, but… Malfoy probably needed the company. It wasn't much a good example to set if Harry didn't eat himself.

 _I never would have thought a day would come where I was trying to be a role model for Malfoy_ , he thought idly. He couldn't even summon the energy to feel amused for the fact. He couldn't find the energy for anything, for that matter, until –

"The Malfoy brat should not be touching things that are not being his," Kreacher croaked, just short of a sharp snap. "The Malfoy brat should be putting things back _._ "

Harry cracked an eye open, blinked hazily, and drew his gaze to where Malfoy stood across the table. He still stood before the cabinets, still silent and remarkably attentive, and that was all Harry had time to realise before his focus snagged upon the bottle in Malfoy's hand.

Harry didn't know where he'd found it. A cabinet, maybe. For all Harry knew, those beneath the china could have been stuffed with the most expensive vintages London had ever seen.

He didn't care. All that flooded Harry's mind was the sharp yet shadowed memory of a dark room scattered with bottles, the weight of Death slugging through Malfoy's veins, and Hermione's words, what were almost pleas when Harry had briefly partaken of his own bout with the bottle as a crutch.

He'd never found the stash in the dining room. How hadn't he found it? Harry suddenly, desperately wished he had – not so that he could have had it for himself, but so that Malfoy wouldn't have found it.

"Don't," Harry blurted out before he could help himself. He was on his feet in an instant, hands clutching the edge of the table. "Malfoy, put it back."

Malfoy, who until that moment had been frowning down at Kreacher at his side with a poor mimic of the glare he'd once worn so readily, glanced towards him. His frown shifted with it.

"What?"

"I don't even know where you go that, but –" Harry's fingers tightened in their grasp. "Put it back, would you?"

A confusing mess of emotions leapt across Malfoy face. Harry had never been good at reading expressions, but he understood the one Malfoy's finally settled upon. Annoyance. And a touch of frustration. And maybe something… something a little desperate.

His hands squeezed the bottle, fingers choking the neck as though it were that of a hated opponent. "What, you think I shouldn't have any?"

"I know you shouldn't," Harry replied.

Malfoy's lip curled in what wasn't quite a sneer. "Well, you are the authority on all things mental illness, apparently."

"Not in the least. But you're not drinking any of that."

"Because I can't control myself?"

"Probably not," Harry said truthfully. He ignored Draco's widening stare. "After what I've seen, it wouldn't be good for you."

For a moment, Malfoy seemed to struggle. Harry could almost heard the conflict clashing in his mind, a war raging between _'I can't be bothered to continue this conversation'_ and _'Let me do what the fuck I want'._ Finally, his gaze returned to the bottle, and Harry saw his jaw tense.

"And if it helped me?" he said lowly. "Would you say I couldn't if I needed it?"

When Malfoy's hand rose to the waxed-sealed cork, Harry felt his whole body tighten, weariness abruptly swept aside. Quite against his intention, his magic flinched.

It shouldn't have done that. It shouldn't have been able to, not anymore. But it did, and before Harry knew what was happening, the bottle in Malfoy's hands was wrenched free and flung across the table cluttered with its steaming plates.

It didn't soar far. Harry's magic hadn't performed a full _Accio_ charm in years. The bottle spun, flipped head over end. To Kreacher's squawk, Malfoy's wide-eyed attention, and Harry's preparatory horror, if fell. The shatter of glass, the glugging spill or wine, shouldn't have erupted so violently from such a fall.

But it did.

The dining room froze. Kreacher had fallen silent and balanced on his toes to peer wide-eyed at the mess on the table. Malfoy's stare had flattened, but stare he did. He was fixated, blank, but definitely staring.

Harry's hands trembled on the edge of the table. The drip of purple wine from the jagged edge of the bottle's broken neck, rocking gently in the centre of the table… It called forth images too stark to withhold or smother.

The spill of blood. The reeking scent of Death. The line of red on pale skin that Harry had only seen in dreams because he hadn't seen it, not really, not yet and he didn't _want_ to see that. It hadn't happened. Not yet. Not ever. Blood and split skin and self-harm were words that Hermione used, not elements of his past. Just because it could happen to a victim of suicide, didn't mean it always did. It didn't mean it would happen to Malfoy.

Death didn't have to take so much.

But Harry's mind turned far from rational thought. Malfoy hadn't even moved, hadn't made to move, but Harry lunged himself across the table until he was almost off his feet. His hand flung forth as though to shield the wreckage, the sharpness of possibility, the only danger that could possibly present itself in Grimmauld Place because Harry and Hermione had made sure of it but they hadn't prepared for this.

"Don't touch it," he gasped, voice wavering. "Don't try."

Malfoy's gaze was still blank. His eyes were still affixed. Or at least they were for a moment before he slowly, slowly rising to meet Harry's. Then they weren't quite blank but flattened again, cold, and that felt almost worse.

His lip curled into a more pronounced sneer this time. "What do you mean?" he said shortly. When Harry could only shake his head, hand trembling above the wreckage, his lip curled further. "Just what exactly are you insinuating, Potter?"

He knew. Malfoy wasn't an idiot, regardless of what Harry had accused him of in their past. He knew, but he wanted Harry to say it. Harry didn't want to, but he couldn't quite help himself. "Don't – don't kill yourself," he managed, his tongue running away from him again. "I can't help people that are still alive. It – it doesn't work like that but… I don't want to help you when you're already dead. Please."

Malfoy flinched. His face visibly paled. The sneer faded from his face but somehow that felt worse. "You think I'd –?"

"It's a possibility," Harry said. "It could happen."

"You _think_ I'd –"

"You could."

"My mother made you promise," Malfoy began again.

"Exactly," Harry cut him off. "She made me promise. Not you. That doesn't bind you to your word."

"It does as good as!"

"But you might not have a choice!" Harry said. His hand fell to the table, still covering the bottle, and he barely felt the bite of broken glass sinking into his palm. "That's what happens with depressed people, Malfoy. You might go through with it even if you thought you wouldn't!"

Malfoy flinched again. This time, his whole body recoiled with a step back into the cabinets. China clattered. "What did you just say?"

"It's not your fault," Harry continued, even though he wanted to stop. He felt as though he were regurgitating Hermione's textbooks. "It's… it's chemical. You can't control it, so you can't stop it sometimes. Of course I'd be worried if –"

"You think I'm incapable of controlling myself?" Malfoy all but hissed.

"I didn't say that. I said that you don't have a choice –"

"A choice? I can choose if I want to, Potter."

"But sometimes you can't."

"But I _can_ –"

"But sometimes you _can't_."

Harry heard the frustration in his own voice. He couldn't withhold it, couldn't stop the words from tumbling out even if he didn't know what he was talking about. He didn't know what kind of depression would drive someone to try to try to kill themselves. The doctors and theoreticians who'd written the books Hermione so dutifully attended to likely didn't either. But the words just kept tumbling forth. "Sometimes, and possibly some time you're here, with me, when I'm supposed to be saving you, you might try again. Even if you don't mean to, Malfoy. That's how it bloody well works."

Malfoy was so pale his skin seemed translucent. A vein pulsed in his forehead, but his expression was otherwise carved from stone. His eyes were so flat they seemed like chips of marble. Silence seemed to roll off of him like waves, dribbling through the room. Kreacher was glancing between them but Harry felt himself suddenly unable to move too. Until –

"You don't trust me."

Harry blinked. "I –"

"You don't," Malfoy repeated. Something seemed to fracture in his voice. "I told you I wouldn't, but you don't trust me."

Harry hadn't known until then. He hadn't realised, couldn't fathom, that Malfoy needed company, needed to be trusted, as much as he did. He'd known on a purely observational level that Malfoy had changed with Harry's forced companionship, but this?

Not that it changed anything. Not that it held any real relevance to the core problem. Not really. "It's not a matter of trust, Malfoy," Harry said. "Trust entails you have a choice in your actions."

"You don't –"

"I think you think you have more control of the situation than you do," Harry said, though even as he said the words he knew he should stop. "I think you're forgetting that you already tried. You can't overlook a precedent like that."

Silence. Silence so thick and heavy that Harry could hear the crackling thrum of the record player three storeys above. Its upbeat tune was jarringly out of place.

Malfoy didn't say anything after that. Harry wondered if he even could. His face was so emotionless, so empty, that he seemed to be truly a thoughtless statue where he stood.

Except that statues didn't abruptly straighten. They didn't turn towards the door and stride on swift feet from the room. They didn't retreat with such speed that, had Harry anything to say, he likely wouldn't have had to change to voice it. Malfoy was gone before Harry could even straighten from where he stretched protectively over the broken remains of the bottle.

Malfoy was gone. He was gone, and…

His claims were wrong, but Harry knew he himself had been too. What was he doing? He didn't know what to say, didn't understand something so complex. He didn't know how to help someone, and especially not an alive someone. Why had Naricssa asked such an impossible feat of him? How could he help Malfoy when he couldn't even find the right thing to say to him?

"Master is bleeding," Kreacher grumbled.

Harry blinked out of his stupor. He hadn't even heard Kreacher draw to his side. Following the line of Kreacher's gaze, he turned his palm over. Little chips of green glass clung embedded to his palm, criss-crossed smears of red drawn between them. They painted a macabre image, like a poor attempt of Join the Dots.

Harry curled his hand into a fist. It barely stung in the face of the hollowness that yawned cavernously in his chest. He wondered if it hurt as much as it would have to have sliced his palm open purposely. The thought sickened him to his bones, but if Malfoy had even contemplated it for a second…

 _He might hate me for it, and I might have said the wrong thing – but I had to do it. That he hates me doesn't really matter._

Harry could only wonder why he felt like he was lying just a little.

A/N: Thank you once again to the wonderful people who have reviewed this story. You're all so wonderfully supportive, and I can't tell you how much it helps to hear your thoughts each chapter. Thank you so, so much, and hope to see you next time!


	8. Chapter 8 - Reluctant Trudging

**Chapter 8: Reluctant Trudging**

"How did it go?"

When Harry's gaze snapped up, for a moment he could only to stare across the basement kitchen table. The whispered words – they'd sounded more like those of a visitor than of a person with life flowing through them. Harry had almost hoped it was a visitor; those who spoke to him, his father and mother specifically – he needed them right now.

But it wasn't James abruptly appearing for him. It wasn't Lily either, who never descended to the kitchen, never appeared alongside her husband. It wasn't Fred, nor some other person Harry knew that had passed but was familiar enough to him that they could speak and he would hear them.

Harry's split second of hope died almost as soon as it arose. It was with an effort that he turned towards the fireplace and attempted to present a façade of calm collectedness. "Hermione," he said by way of greeting.

Hermione tipped her head in reply, her conjured chin scraping the bottom of the fireplace. Even in the green cast of flames and magic she looked tired, always tired, and her hair had curls erupting messily from its usual ponytail. As Harry watched, rising from his chair, she raked fingers through that mess.

"So?" she prompted again. "How'd it go?"

"They were a little hesitant at first," Harry said, dropping to his knees before the hearth and sitting back on his heels. "Then when I offered them the money, I thought the mother would turn tail and run away screaming."

Hermione nodded again as though she'd predicted as much. "I suppose that's only to be expected. Most people don't get approached by strangers and offered a large sum of money."

Harry smiled without a hint of amusement. "Probably not, no. She likely thought I was being, I don't know, suggestive or something."

This time, when Hermione nodded it was with very apparent sadness. "That's the truth of it, sometimes. When people are desperate for money, they'll do anything. Prostitution isn't even the worst of it."

Harry flinched slightly. He didn't like that thought. Hated it, even, despite knowing that the family he'd visited only that morning wouldn't have to resort to such extremes anymore. He'd known, even without much of a concept of money and household expenses, that the mother and two children he still didn't know the names of would be alright. That they would survive, at least for a time, and perhaps long enough for the woman to clamber back onto her feet and save her house from being repossessed.

Or at least he could hope so, because the dead man, the man who had silently begged him for aid, had disappeared. He'd even smiled with a silent sigh of relief as he disappeared like mist before sunlight.

"That was a very kind thing you did," Hermione said, speaking into his reminiscence. "For people you don't know – I doubt many others would go so far."

Harry shrugged. "I don't need the money."

"Harry."

"What? I don't. I've got more than I could ever spend with the Black fortune too." He shook his head. "Andromeda still won't take anything I have to offer."

"She'd think it's charity," Hermione said knowingly, her tone heavy.

"Charity that I'd want to help my godson?" Harry asked. A pang twinged in his chest, and he smothered it with difficulty. Harry had wanted to be there for Teddy. He'd wanted to stand by him and be as much of a friend as an uncle to Lupin and Tonks' son. That hope had all but died three Christmases ago when he had an 'incident' at the table with a dead woman.

The Weasley's had already been awkward around him. Andromeda stuck by Harry despite his mentions of Fred and his pleas that the Weasley's believe him and move on, just as Fred asked, despite the impossibility of such a request. But even she hadn't been able to overlook that dinner. Harry couldn't resent the dead woman, but he did regret that her arrival had happened at that precise moment. He regretted that Andromeda had deemed it necessary that he 'take some time to look after himself' rather than spend that time with Teddy.

That hurt. It hurt a lot. Harry didn't like to think about it if he could help it.

Shaking the moment aside with difficulty, Harry drew himself back to the present. "Whatever," he said, resorting to his increasingly worn mantra. "I can't help those who don't ask for it." _Not like the dead_. "Are you alright, Hermione?"

Hermione paused in the act of running her hand through her hair once more. "Sorry?"

"Did you need something? You're looking tired again. Is everything alright?"

"This is my permanent state, I'm afraid," Hermione said with a small smile, gesturing at her face. "Yes, everything's fine. I've just been at the Burrow today for lunch, and it's always a little crazy over there."

"It is?" Harry asked, more for something to say than because he wondered. He knew how it used to be. "How is everyone?"

"You know, Harry, you could always just –"

"How is everyone?" Harry repeated, drowning her out. He didn't want to hear it. Hermione persisted in inviting him, and Ron sent him a letter, only an occasional letter, singing the same tune every so often. Ginny sometimes did too, her words: "Mum says if you wanted to come around you can," always the same if in a different form.

'If you wanted', though. It was always if Harry wanted. Harry knew he wasn't welcome there anymore. He couldn't do that to the Weasleys.

Hermione sighed, and her weariness took on a new form. "They're fine, Harry," she said in a small voice. "They're doing just fine. Ron's picking up his pace at the shop and Ginny's says she's been put up for first draw come next quidditch season."

"That's great," Harry said, hoping he sounded more genuine than he felt. He was happy for his once-family, but that happiness was tinged with longing and more than a little pain. "I'm happy for her."

Hermione smiled, that knowing tinge to her expression once more. When had she become so wise? Harry didn't know. "Charlie apparently sent a letter. He said he'll be coming home for Christmas this year. And Mrs Weasley's started buying things for Percy and Audrey's baby, if their spare room is any indication."

Harry couldn't even try to smile this time. It hurt too fiercely that he was missing out on so much. "That's… great. When's Audrey due again?"

"Not until April," Hermione said. "We've still got Christmas to get through yet."

"Yeah," Harry said, dropping his gaze. Christmas was not as fun as it had once been.

"Sorry."

"Why?" Harry asked, unable to meet what he knew was Hermione's sympathetic gaze.

"I shouldn't have brought it up," she said quietly.

Harry shrugged. "You're allowed to. Christmas is exciting, right?"

"Right." Even through the fireplace, Harry could hear Hermione swallow awkwardly. She cleared her throat a moment later, her words picking up speed in an attempt at joviality. "Or at least it will be if I can manage to get some time off. That would be nice, wouldn't it?"

Harry attempted a chuckle. "You work too hard."

"Don't we all?"

"No," Harry said. "I don't actually work, in case you missed that somewhere over the years."

"You do," Hermione said decisively. "You help people."

"Dead people," Harry reminded her, glancing up from his knees in time to catch the moment she muffled her instinctive scepticism. _That's nice of her. She's pretending I'm not crazy today._

"And people who are alive, too," she reminded him. "Like that family with the money."

"Giving people money is easy if you have it to give," Harry said.

"What about helping grieving families, then?"

"I don't actually help that much. Mostly it's just relaying hand-written words."

"Draco, then."

Harry flinched, and it wasn't because Hermione used Malfoy's name. He couldn't help himself. He'd been hoping they would avoid the subject, but such a hope was all but fruitless when it came to Hermione. She never overlooked anything.

The truth of the matter was that Malfoy had taken a step backwards. Just as Hermione had speculated was more than possible, was all but expected, he'd fallen back – and maybe more than one step, too. If anything, he'd taken a giant leap in the opposite direction of recovery, and that leap similarly took him away from Harry.

He'd retreated to his room. He didn't step outside anymore, not for mealtimes nor in search of Harry for the company that Harry had realised he'd perhaps unwittingly wanted. He didn't speak when Harry came to his room with their meals as he'd begun to once more and he barely even looked at him. That he'd taken to not eating most of the time again…

It was scary, and the worst part was that he didn't even seem petulant. Malfoy wasn't sulking like a child. Harry knew the difference, because he'd known the old Malfoy, and this was something distinctly other. Malfoy was sad, but it was more than that. He hurt. He slumped heavily in bed as though the weight of sitting up was simply too great to overcome, and the scent of death that shouldn't so thickly coat people who were alive settled upon him more strongly each passing day.

Harry didn't know what to do about it.

He'd tried to pretend the argument hadn't happened, but that went about as well as he could have expected. He tried apologising, which was something that would have once rankled at him. Not anymore, however. Harry had felt apologetic for far too many things in his life to feel awkward in voicing it.

That hadn't worked, either. Harry wasn't even sure if Malfoy had heard him.

When Hermione coaxed thoughts of Malfoy to the surface, Harry shrunk away from them, but he couldn't escape. Was he helping Malfoy? No. He wasn't helping at all. If anything, he'd made the situation worse.

"Is it still going badly, then?" Hermione asked in a small voice.

Harry raised only his gaze, his head still bowed. "Yeah. You could say that."

"He isn't…?"

"He won't do anything. He's sleeping most the time, or practically sleeping. He's not really eating anything again, and he's not talking to me anymore."

"Harry," Hermione said, her voice low. "Harry, that's really worrying."

"I know," Harry said with a touch of annoyance.

"Something needs to be done."

"I know."

"He can't just continue like –"

"I know, Hermione," Harry snapped. He immediately winced, dropping his gaze as Hermione pressed her lips together, a worried frown creasing her brow. "Sorry. I – I'm sorry."

A moment of silence met his words before, "It's alright."

"No, it's not."

"Harry, it's fine if you get upset."

Harry shook his head. "No, it's really not. Especially not with you. I shouldn't take it out on you when you're just trying to help."

Hermione fell quiet for another stretch of silence. "What can I do?" she finally asked quietly.

Harry shook his head again. "I honestly don't know. If I did, I'd be doing it."

"The books say –"

"I know what the books say, Hermione," Harry interrupted her, though the anger had drained from him. He just felt tired. How did Hermione handle it with work on top of everything else? "You sent me the letters."

"Then –"

"I'm doing what you said. Maybe I'm just the wrong person for it."

"Or maybe this tactic just isn't what Draco specifically needs," Hermione said.

Harry raised his gaze once more from where his fingers had begun absently plucking at a loose thread of his faded jeans. "Like what?"

"Like medication," she said. "It's only a crutch but it is a viable alternative that people tend to overlook because –"

"Because it has a stigma attached to it, yeah," Harry finished for her. He knew all about that. He knew because, far be it from remaining ignorant, he had once tried to understand this thing called depression that Hermione had introduced him to years ago. He knew that stigma on a first-hand basis because he'd felt his own reluctance well at the thought of being treated like a sick person. But if there was no other option for Malfoy, if he needed it…

"You said he'd once been taking potions his mother got for him, didn't you?" Hermione asked.

"Yeah. That's what he said."

"Then could we perhaps get our hands upon some more?"

Harry pursed his lips, tugging sharply on the denim thread. "I don't know. He mentioned that the doctor who prescribed them all but turned them away after the first time."

"But surely there's someone else."

"Who would treat a Malfoy?" Another sharp tug, and the thread snapped in Harry's fingers. "You know the stigma attached to them, too."

"Unfortunately," Hermione said with a sigh that puffed ashes from the hearth. "Even more so after Narcissa's death and the VLF floundering in their most recent debates."

"How're they going?" Harry asked distractedly. He didn't keep up with the news. He didn't even know if the Victims Liberation Front had found a new leader or if they'd folded into obscurity entirely.

Hermione shrugged, though the gesture was anything but casual. "It's hanging together by fraying cables, I'm afraid."

"Shit."

"Tell me about it," she said. Then she shook her head. "No. We'll discuss this later. Right now: Draco."

"I thought we'd covered that?" Harry said, abruptly incredibly tired. He raked his hands through his hair before clasping them at his nape, hanging his head backwards. "If we can't get a doctor or healer then we'd have to make the potion ourselves, and since I've always sucked at brewing –"

"No, no, that would be a terrible idea," Hermione said, shaking her head sharply. "The kind of potions and magic that so subtly affects the mind can end in disaster with an extra stir in the wrong place."

"Well, that's comforting."

Hermione ignored him. "We're not going to risk making something ourselves, Harry. I'm wondering if perhaps…" She trailed off, lips pressing again into a thin line.

"What?" Harry asked warily.

"Do you think…?"

"What?"

Hermione's frown resurfaced as she met his gaze. "How likely do you think it would be that Draco would agree to seeing a Muggle doctor?"

 _Not at all_ , was the immediate response that rose on Harry's tongue. Malfoy? Go to Muggles for help? For anything at all would be a stretch of the imagination, but for medical reasons? Harry thought it beyond unlikely. Convincing Malfoy to go to a Wizarding mind-healer would be a battle enough, even if they did manage to find one.

He shook his head. "I can't see that happening."

"Could you just try asking him?"

"Hermione, he doesn't even look at me, let alone speak to me. I doubt he even hears me when I try to talk to him anymore."

"What if I asked him, then?"

Harry couldn't help but roll his eyes. "Right. Because you, a Muggleborn, suggesting to a Malfoy that seeing a Muggle doctor is a good idea would really go down well."

"True." Hermione sighed. "You're probably right. But even so, you could at least try, couldn't you?"

"I could, but it's not going to work," Harry said, reminded of how many times he'd tried and tried and failed. In everything for that matter, not just Malfoy. It was a distressing thought.

"You sound like you're intentionally digging your heels in now," Hermione said chidingly.

"I'm not. I just think it's not going to –"

"Do you even want to help him, Harry? Or are you just going to leave it up to fate like you did for yourself?"

Harry knew the moment Hermione spoke that she regretted her words. They were curt and sharp, driven by anger, even, but he saw that she regretted them instantly.

Or a part of him did. A small part. The larger part was split between two abruptly shouting voices.

 _She thinks I don't want to help him?! How could she say that? I'm_ _the one who made the promise and have been trying to help every bloody day. How could she even think that?_

The other half, though – the other quieter, sadder part… _She thinks I'm projecting,_ the voice thought sombrely. _She thinks I don't want to help him because I see myself in him. Because I'm against it or – or because I didn't think it would work for me, so it won't for him._

It was wrong. It was so wrong, and mostly because Harry suspected that at least a little of it was true. Not so much the helping-Malfoy part, because if Harry had discovered anything in the past week it was that his caring went beyond fulfilling Narcissa's wish. He didn't know when it had progressed, nor how or even why, but it had. Harry didn't want Malfoy to suffer. He didn't want him to hurt so much anymore.

But the other part? That he was projecting?

Harry knew he and Malfoy were different. He knew that their problems, their circumstances, the thoughts that weighed them down, were different. They might be born from the same place, even, but they were certainly different. Except that Hermione was right in that Harry didn't think he could face such a suggestion for himself. Not in the least. And maybe it was a strange form of self-defence, but Harry suddenly found he didn't want to have to afflict it on Malfoy, either.

"Harry," Hermione said, her voice cracking with the crackle of the fire. "Harry, I'm sorry, I –"

"It's okay," Harry said, his voice so quiet he almost couldn't hear himself. "I don't mind."

"No, Harry, I didn't mean –"

"It's fine, Hermione, really." Heaving himself from his knees took more effort than Harry had thought himself possible of overcoming, but he managed. "I'll think about it and I'll get back to you. Okay?"

"Harry," Hermione said, her voice as pleading as any visitor's unspoken words, her eyes just as much. "I'm sorry, I really didn't mean it like that."

Harry glanced over his shoulder as he skirted the table back to his chair. The distance from the hearth, the obstacle of the table that lay in the way, was somehow comforting. Reassuring, even if it pained him that Harry needed that distance. "It's fine, Hermione," he repeated. "I'll try talking to him or whatever. Thanks for the suggestion."

Something in his tone must have told Hermione that the discussion was over. Her face fell, crumpling, but she nodded. "Alright," she whispered. "I'm, ah – alright, Harry. Will you, um… Will you get in touch with me? When you want to?"

 _When you want to_. Harry hated those words. Worse, he hated that he'd caused Hermione to voice them. But he nodded. "I will," he said. "Get some rest, Hermione. You look really tired."

She nodded, tried to smile, then sighed when the attempt failed. Then, in a crackling spit of flame, her head popped from the hearth to return the flames to their usual spluttering mess.

Harry slumped back into his chair. Raising his hands to his face, he rubbed his fingers behind his glasses, scrubbing at his eyes. He felt like an idiot. A cruel idiot. But worse than that, his mind kept returning towards Hermione's suggestion. Should he do it? Should he pose the suggestion to Malfoy? Would Malfoy agree as Harry couldn't fathom doing himself? Maybe Hermione was right and he should just do it.

"There's nothing wrong with it, you know."

Dropping his hands, Harry raised his gaze to where James had appeared across the table. As he always sat, his chin was propped atop his hand and he regarded Harry as though he was the centre of the room.

"With what?" Harry asked, hands dropping limply to his lap.

"With asking," James said. "Only asking."

"What if he says no?" _Or says nothing at all? What if this, which could be the last resort, doesn't work? Should I take him to St. Mungo's? Would they even take him in there?_

"Then he says no," James replied. He cocked his head. "You'd be no worse off than if you hadn't asked."

"Except he could hate me more."

"I don't think he hates you."

"You haven't seen him. You haven't spoken to him."

"And neither have you, really," James pointed out.

Harry didn't know how he knew such things. That strange awareness that his visitors had was uncanny at the best of times. Harry chose to brush it aside as he always did; the few times he'd asked questions pertaining to such matters, years ago when he'd first begun seeing visitors at all, had been disconcerting enough to silence future attempts. It was better off not knowing.

"What if –?" Harry began, then paused to lick his lips. "What if he rejects it because… because of what it is?"

"Potions?" James asked.

"Or pills, as it would be if he went to a Muggle doctor." As impossible as it might be to convince him, that much at least Harry thought was a relatively good idea. Malfoy might think otherwise if he had any thoughts on the matter at all, but Harry thought it safer to approach to those less emotionally invested than the Healers of the Wizarding world.

"Because of what it is," James echoed slowly. "Are you sure it's him who would have a problem with them and not yourself?"

Harry opened his mouth to reply and found he couldn't. His tongue abruptly felt clogged in his throat. Why did he have to think that way? Harry didn't even know what was so aversive to him about the prospect. It was only that… Well, the Wizarding world had asked a whole lot of him, so much and to the point that he felt like a puppet upon their strings. Then Voldemort – and Dumbledore in his way – had controlled him before that. And before that, every single one of Harry's decisions was overridden by the Dursleys.

Harry had enough of others controlling his life years ago. Somehow, the thought of having chemicals controlling it instead wasn't any more favourable.

"Sometimes," James said quietly, "we need the help. There's nothing wrong with using a crutch when you've got a broken leg, right?"

Harry lowered his gaze. Maybe… Maybe if it was posed like that, Malfoy might agree. Even if, for reasons he couldn't quite fathom, Harry couldn't quite manage himself.

"I'll try," he whispered, more a promise to himself than his father. Then he rose to his feet and left the room.

* * *

Regulus' old room, the room that Harry was growing to think of more and more as simply Malfoy's, was as starkly stagnant and silent as it ever was. More than it had been until but days before, however. The tinny tunes of the record player, ceaseless as it had been for weeks, seemed overloud in the face of that silence.

Harry paused just inside the doorway. The plates loaded with dinner in his hands were more tokenistic than functional; he knew Malfoy wouldn't partake, and he too was finding himself with less and less of an appetite of late. Still, when he entered the room, he followed his usual steps in circling Malfoy's bed and placing the plate on his nightstand as he always did.

Every day. Three times every day.

Malfoy lay as still and listless as ever. One arm was bent and folded under his head, and his gaze was trained towards the wall with the alcove and window. Whether he actually looked out that window or not Harry didn't know. He'd never thought to ask when they'd still been speaking.

For a moment, Harry stood at his bedside and stared down at him. For just that moment, he felt like he had to – to be sure he was still breathing, to be sure he was still alive. The weight of death, not quite Death itself but some sort of precursor very like it, cocooned in a mimic of the thin sheets, but as Harry watched, he saw the barest of movements in Malfoy's shoulders.

 _I'll have to get him some more blankets soon_ , Harry thought, and then wondered where that thought had come from. Caring, he supposed. It was caring, because… Harry did care. Just a little bit. Impossibly so, because he truly cared for so few people and most of them didn't return that care. Not anymore. Harry considered the dead because they were the ones who still needed him, but Malfoy? For whatever reason, Harry was made aware that he really did care for him, if only now that Malfoy had effectively taken himself away from him.

Malfoy had wanted Harry's trust. He'd wanted his company. Harry was only just realising that maybe he wanted a bit of that too.

"I brought dinner," Harry said redundantly, gesturing to the plate. "Can you try and have some?"

Malfoy blinked slowly.

"Please."

The barest shifting in his sheets could have been in recognition of Harry's words but no reply confirmed that fact. Malfoy didn't reply. He didn't sit up and reach towards his dinner either.

Sighing, Harry turned and shuffled to his usual seat in the window's alcove. Climbing into place, he turned his attention briefly to the heap of pasta carbonara before him, then placed it aside. Drawing his knees up before him, he rested forearms then his forehead atop them and sagged with a heavy exhalation.

 _We're almost as bad as each other_ , Harry thought. _Different, but the same. Maybe Hermione's right to think I'm projecting._

Harry didn't want to die. He'd never felt the urge, not even when he was at his most useless. It was impossible to be surrounded by the misery of Death for so much of the day, the grief even in the absence of grievers, to even consider pursuing that route himself. It would be like climbing from a discomfortingly lukewarm bath into one even colder.

Harry didn't want that. But he was growing to realise from Malfoy's company, from observing Malfoy in his own listlessness, that he wasn't really properly living, either. His discussion with Hermione and James had opened the door to possible solutions, but Harry wasn't sure he could face them. Not for himself, at least.

But for Malfoy?

"I don't know what to do," he said quietly. Given Malfoy's prior deafness and unresponsiveness to his words, he figured he was speaking mostly to himself, but he continued nonetheless. "I'm not sure if there's anything I even can do. Not for you, and certainly not for me."

His words hung in the stagnant silence of the room, the only disruption the upbeat jive that Harry knew only as a song from the Wizarding band ' _The Cacklers'_ singing merrily next door. Malfoy didn't move. For the absence of sound, he didn't even shift in response.

"I do want to help you, Malfoy. Isn't that obvious? I wouldn't let you stick around if I didn't want to."

More silence. It seemed to thrum in the air and for a moment Harry closed his eyes to the sting of it. Even with Malfoy present, he suddenly felt very alone. "I don't know how to help you," he whispered. "I've never done this before and I… I need you to help me help you. Please."

Still no reply. Harry hunched his shoulders slightly; for the first time in a long time, he felt a touch of a chill that had nothing to do with the encroaching winter.

Turning his head slightly, Harry peered across the room to where Malfoy lay. Malfoy, who had barely moved for days, who needed a Healer but had already admitted to the uselessness of seeking one. Malfoy, who could very well fade away and follow his mother if Harry didn't do something about it.

Harry had never liked Malfoy, and he wasn't sure if his care and longing for the return of his company truly meant that had changed, but he didn't want Malfoy to leave. Not like that. Not if there was any chance of avoiding such a fate.

 _There's nothing wrong with using a crutch for a broken leg_ , James had said.

"You said you took a potion before," Harry murmured, and Malfoy's lack of response made his words once more a statement to himself rather than in conversation. "You said that it helped you."

No reply.

"Do you think you could try something like that again?" Harry sunk his teeth into his bottom lip. He wasn't sure if he would prefer Malfoy to reply in fierce dismissal of the idea or to have no reply at all. As Malfoy remained silent, staring and slowly blinking, Harry decided the former was far preferable.

"It wouldn't be the same," Harry continued. "I don't know if I'd even be able to find a Wizarding Healer who would be willing to help. But Muggles – they would have something. They have, ah…"

Harry trailed off. What could he say? That Muggles had developed medicinal methods of achieving results equal to those of the most refined potions? That they could likely help him too and that Malfoy should turn to such an option, that he almost must, because Harry didn't know what else to do?

He felt like a hypocrite. _Here, Malfoy. Consider this option that I can't, won't, and wouldn't even consider for myself_. Harry bit his lip until it hurt; the sharp distraction helped, if only a little.

"It's an option," he finished dully.

Malfoy still didn't reply. Not that Harry had really expected him to, but his silence only weighed even more heavily upon Harry's shoulders. He stared across the room, towards the window and where Harry sat, but whether he actually saw him, whether he saw anything at all or perhaps simply saw through him into nothing, Harry didn't know.

He didn't push. He didn't ask for more. To the jolly sound of the jive a room away and the patter of the beginnings of a shower flecking the window, Harry wrapped his arms around his knees and hugged himself as night fully fell.

He sat in the alcove as the last of the sun disappeared.

He sat when the patter of rain intensified into a storm that clattered against the window. His finger followed a single droplet as it trickled down to the pane.

He was still sitting when Kreacher ghosted quietly into the room and swept away congealed plates of dinner, peering at Harry without a word before disappearing just as silently once more.

Harry sat, head bowed and staring through the rain-flecked window at the gloomily lit street below as Grimmauld Place groaned beneath the weight of its years and settled as it did every night. Harry knew. He'd spent more nights awake into the early hours of the morning than he could remember.

When Malfoy's nearly silent breaths, almost inaudible unless Harry strained to hear them as he found himself unconsciously doing, lengthened, he hadn't moved from his seat. Those breaths, slower and grown longer, softer, deeper, were almost peaceful.

 _Sleeping,_ Harry noted detachedly. _That's good. At least he's getting a little bit of sleep, if nothing else._

Harry didn't leave that night. If he wanted to, if he had anyone to defend himself to, he could claim it was because he didn't want to leave Malfoy alone, but that would be more than a little false. After all, he'd left him alone for days. If anything, it was Harry who didn't want to be alone.

He only wished the company felt less like isolation.

When the sun began to rise, the greyness of predawn withdrawing into momentary darkness before brightening with the wan daylight, Harry was almost surprised. He'd thought he would leave Malfoy's room at some point during the night, but that inclination had apparently been overlooked. Slow, consistent, and nearly inaudible as it was, there was something comforting about listening to Malfoy breathe. It seemed to stand as a signal that he was still alive.

The rain didn't die with morning. It slowed a little, but only slightly. Harry was staring out the window, his hand pressed absently against the chilled glass where he'd placed it hours before, when the weight in the room seemed to shift. He barely noticed at first, attention resting blurrily upon his hand; funny, that the glass felt somehow warmer than his fingers.

"You're here."

For a moment, Harry wasn't sure he'd heard a voice at all. Then he wondered foolishly if it might have even been his own. Slowly, slowly, he turned his head until his cheek rested upon his knees and he was staring across the room once more.

Malfoy lay as he had all night. As he had for days. The only difference was that his eyes were open, and they were staring at Harry. Actually staring, not seeing through him. Harry wasn't entirely sure how he could discern the distinction but he knew.

"Yes," he said simply.

"Since last night?" Malfoy's voice was a croak, hoarse from disuse.

Harry nodded. A touch of something not quite warm welled within him that Malfoy had been aware enough to notice him at all through his detached daze. "Yes."

"Why? Are you making sure I don't check out in my sleep now?"

Warmth faded into a dull ache. Harry caught his lip between his teeth once more in an effort to stifle the words of hatred that longed to spill forth. Not for Malfoy, he knew, but for the idea. For the inclination. For the decisiveness and search for control that James had explained to him of Remus and the escape that Malfoy himself had mentioned. He hated it – but now wasn't the time. It would be cruel to voice. Unfair, even.

"Maybe," Harry murmured. "Or maybe I just wanted to be here. To be with you."

Malfoy sighed. His eyes slid closed, but it wasn't to slip into sleep. Harry knew that. He could feel Malfoy's attentiveness as he hadn't for days. Why it had arisen at all he didn't know, but he was thankful for it.

"To save me," he finally said.

"Yes."

Malfoy sighed again. "You cling so fiercely to your promises to the dead, Potter. It's foolish."

"More foolish than following after them before your time?"

Malfoy cracked an eye open. He glared, but it held little force. "That was a cruel blow."

"I know," Harry said.

"I never thought you were cruel."

"I'm only returning the favour. You disrespect me and I'll do the same to you. Don't think that just because you don't feel well I'll pity you with a semblance of kindness."

'Not feeling well' was such an understatement to what Malfoy was experiencing that it was barely even a euphemism, but Malfoy didn't protest the words. "Fair enough," was all he said.

They fell silent for a long, long time, the patter of rain a constant tune to offset that of the music playing next door. It was strangely soothing for its consistency. Still, Harry couldn't let the silence persist forever. He didn't know why Malfoy had chosen to speak to him that morning but he had to ride the wave of opportunity while it still welled.

"Will you have something to eat today?" he asked in barely more than a murmur.

Malfoy blinked at him slowly. "I…"

"What?"

"I don't think I can."

"Can't? Or don't want to?"

"I…" Malfoy trailed off into a long, slow exhalation.

"Please," Harry tried. His voice broke slightly on the word as he hadn't expected, but he let it slide.

Malfoy half-turned to bury his face into his pillow. "Why do you try so hard, Potter?" he said, words muffled.

"Because I promised I wouldn't let you die," Harry said quietly.

Malfoy snorted so feebly that it could barely be deemed a snort. "Don't worry," he murmured without the barest trace of anger or sarcasm. "I'm sure my mother would forgive your for giving up. And if she wouldn't?" Another small snort just as empty. In many ways, that emptiness made it worse. "She's not around anymore to care."

Harry's hands slid from embracing his knees to curl around his ankles. He squeezed simply as something to hold onto. "That's not it."

"It is," Malfoy intoned.

"No, it's not. Don't try and tell me how I feel."

"You admitted it yourself, Potter. Don't lie."

"I'm not lying. It was for your mother. Still is, at least a little bit. But I…" Harry trailed off. His hands squeezed tighter still until his nails dug into the thin skin just above the bone. "I do want to help you. I want to."

Malfoy stilled. He hadn't been expressly moving before but he stilled further, and it was noticeable. Slowly, just slightly, he turned his head towards Harry. Harry met his gaze, and the sun crept its way further into the sky as he waited.

"There's something very wrong with you," Malfoy finally said. "Probably almost as much as me."

"Just a different kind of wrong, I think," Harry said just as quietly. "Maybe that's why I want to help."

"To help yourself?"

"Maybe."

Malfoy closed his eyes briefly. "That, at least, I can understand."

"And," Harry continued, because Malfoy's dismissal struck him, "because I care."

"You –"

"I care," Harry said, overriding any objections. Abruptly, wholly, as he'd only speculated before, Harry knew that much: that he cared, and he didn't want Malfoy to hurt, or to struggle, or to be in pain. In many ways, it was as bad as the struggles of the dead who couldn't help themselves. Malfoy was just as helpless, and Harry couldn't stand that. He hated simply watching and feeling so useless.

"I care about you," he said, raising his chin from his knees and meeting Malfoy's eyes where he turned and watched him with an unwavering stare. "I want to help you because what you – what you're going through? If I can stop it, I really want to. Not just for your mum, but for you." A pause, and then, "Will you let me?"

Silence.

"Please?"

Malfoy shifted, curling into himself slightly and burying his face again.

"Please, Draco?"

At his name, a sound almost like a whimper issued from Malfoy. From Draco. He curled still further onto himself, his face pressing into his pillow. He looked so unexpectedly small that Harry almost forgot that they were both more than the children they'd been. But then Draco twisted, head dragging across his pillow, and stared once more across the room towards Harry.

His face was heartbreaking. Harry had never pitied Draco before, not even at his worst. Felt for him, perhaps, but pity? Never. But Draco was utterly pitiful at that moment. Pitiful and as desperate as any visitor Harry had even had. His face was sickly pale, the dark smudges beneath his eyes stark, and his eyes were tight as though he struggled to withhold the tears that filmed them.

Pitiful, maybe, but not without hope.

"I'm fucked up," Draco said, his voice wavering. "I'm pretty sure I could use some of that help."

Harry smiled sadly. "Then let me give it to you."

* * *

A/N: Gosh, I really can't thank all of the lovely people who have reviewed enough. If I've somehow missed your review and haven't given my thanks directly, just know that I sincerely appreciate every single one, no matter how small or large. You give me the motivation to keep on, so thank you!


	9. Chapter 9 - Blind Running

**Chapter 8: Blind Running**

Making the call was hard. Convincing Draco to give it a try when Harry wouldn't even consider it for himself was harder. Harry might have found it frustrating or even dejecting – except that he was instead simply relieved that Draco was willing to talk to him at all.

"You said the potions worked for you."

"I did," Draco said, burying himself in his bed and nearly stifling his voice entirely. "The _potions_."

"But now you don't want to give it another go?"

"This is Muggle medicine, Potter. It's different."

"Well, we can't get potions," Harry said more rationally than he felt. "Not if what you said is true. Is it? Did you want to see if we can find someone who will -?"

"No," Draco said. "I don't want to do that."

"Then we have to try a Muggle doctor. There's no other option."

Draco looked like he would rather chew out his tongue than attempt such a pursuit. He didn't speak to Harry for the rest of the afternoon after that – but only for the afternoon.

Because Draco was trying. He was clearly trying. Harry was almost surprised by how much he seemed to respond to a proffered hand when willingly given. Maybe that was all he really did need? Maybe Harry would be enough?

Except that memory of what had happened in the dining hall rose to repel such a thought each time Harry considered it. He couldn't risk that again.

After three days, three long days where Draco tried, and Harry tried to convince him through the shame of his own hypocrisy, Draco agreed.

Pausing in the process of taking his first bite of breakfast in days, Draco sighed and lowered his toast. "Alright," he said.

Harry glanced towards him from his alcove. "What?"

"I said alright. I…" Draco swallowed thickly, as though the bite of toast were already lodged in his throat. "I'll try a Muggle doctor."

"We need the help," Harry said quietly. "Even if it's just a – a crutch, and doesn't fix everything, we could use it."

"Yeah."

The next morning, Harry made the call with the aid of the local telephone book, flipping through pages in the directory for appointments with anyone who would take them on short notice. The morning after, Draco stepped from his room and descended the stairwell as he hadn't in days. That was the hardest part. Then getting out the door, which was even harder. Then hailing a taxi, the hardest yet, because –

"I would rather Apparate," Draco said flatly, wavering slightly on the door step. He looked only a lurching step away from fleeing into the depths of the house once more.

"You can't," Harry said, waving a 'wait' gesture towards the taxi driver. He turned back to Draco. "You wouldn't be able to Apparate yourself."

"Then you can –"

"I can't," Harry interrupted him. "I can't use magic anymore. Not like that. It doesn't work."

Draco fell silent. He stared at Harry as though he'd never seen him before, and even if Harry hated the thought of being ogled like an unusual zoo resident, he appreciated the momentary distraction. Draco subsided enough to get into the taxi.

The trip through London, the wait in traffic, the moment of awkwardness in money exchange and clambering out onto the footpath – it was all hard, and harder still because Draco seemed to shrink further and further into himself with each passing second.

It continued to be a struggle, right up to and beyond when Harry led the way through the narrow door and down the hallway to the doctor's office. The street upon which it sat was busy with traffic, though held nothing on the congestion of many regions in London. Harry was grateful for that at least, as much for himself as for Draco's benefit. He'd grown somewhat discomforted in crowds over the years.

The doctor's office, though, the narrow door that seemed more a channel between buildings than a building itself, was subdued and unremarkable. It wasn't confronting, the glass front depicting the words 'Dr Monika Getz, M.D.' in sticky letters above that of her two collegues. Harry led the way inside. It took a struggle, but he managed not to glance over his shoulder to be sure that Draco followed him.

The hallway was almost as narrow as the door. Beyond, the waiting room was modest and simplistically refined, silent but for the gurgling of a water tank and the clicking of the receptionist's pen as she scribbled something behind the counter. Harry glanced at the pair of patients sitting mutely, heads bowed as though in respect of privacy, to the pot plant in the corner, the table spread neatly with dated magazines, before heading for the desk.

The receptionist, a woman who could have been Harry's age with wide eyes behind her square spectacles, blinked up at him with a professional smile. "Hello," she said in a voice as calming as the bubbling water. "How can I help you? Do you have an appointment?"

"Yes," Harry said, shouldering aside his awkwardness. He glanced over his towards Draco where he stood inside the mouth of the hallway. Years ago, Harry would have thought it impossible for him to seem so subdued, to be able to shrink from his haughtiness enough to even know what nervousness felt like. But he did. He had. He looked terribly fragile with his shoulders slightly hunched, his hollow cheeks, and his arms rising to cross his thin chest. The posture was more defensive than presuming.

 _He can't handle it himself,_ Harry thought, and despite his own discomfort, the reminder gave him strength. _He can't do it so I'll have to do it for him_.

The thought was a handhold to grasp, shunting aside Harry's welling awkwardness enough that he could reply. Somehow, it was easier to be strong for another person than for himself. "I called to make an appointment under Malfoy," he said, voice lower with the same instinctive enactment of privacy that the rest of the waiters assumed.

The receptionist smiled politely and nodded, flipping through the papers on her desk to snatch up a clipboard. She offered it to him, placing a pen on top with the precision that bespoke long habit. "Since this is your first visit, I'll need you to fill out some paperwork. Name, details, private health insurance – the lot." She smiled again; it was as good a dismissal as any.

Harry clutched the clipboard to his chest as he shuffled back towards Draco's side. He felt so utterly out of place, not only in public but in a doctor's office the likes of which he'd never been before. The closest to medical support Harry had ever experienced in the Muggle world had been his somewhat disastrous trip to the optometrist as a child. They'd only gone because his teacher had all but ordered it. His Aunt Petunia had stormed out of the waiting room spitting like a cat when the cost of the glasses was presented to her.

Harry had never gone back.

 _But this is different_ , Harry reminded himself. _Besides, it's not even for me._ That made it easier again. So much easier when it was someone else – when it was Draco – that he was helping.

"Come on," Harry said, tipping his head to the line of thinly cushioned seats stretched along one wall. "We've got this… thing." He gestured vaguely with the clipboard before heading towards the chairs. Draco trudged in his wake; the heaviness he plopped into the seat beside Harry seemed to speak for itself.

Harry was dragging his gaze down the printed page, tapping the pen absently, when Draco seemed to clamber from his thoughts long enough to lean in towards him. "What is that?" he muttered barely audibly.

"You've got to fill it out before you see the doctor," Harry replied just as quietly.

"Yes, but what is it for?"

A bite of irritation put a blunt edge on Draco's words, but Harry didn't let it faze him. "It's just asking for your details. Age, address, insurance – stuff like that."

"I don't –" Draco paused, and somehow his voice grew lower, his shoulders tensing even more tightly. "I doubt they'd accept Wizarding details."

"No. Probably not."

"I don't have Muggle insurance."

"I figured."

"Even my Wizarding contract was terminated years ago."

Harry only nodded. "That's okay. We'll just…" He chewed his lip, sparing a glance for the oblivious receptionist who had already returned to her work and then to a patient as he leant forwards to pluck a magazine from the table before him. Harry turned back towards Draco, lowering his own voice to barely a whisper. "Hermione told me how to do this. She works the Wizarding-Muggle transition really well, and –"

"Granger?" Draco grunted flatly. "She meddles a lot."

"She's helping," Harry replied, smothering his own irritation and urge to rise in Hermione defence. They may be struggling through a lull in their usual correspondence, but it wouldn't be for long. Besides, he loved her; a quarrel wouldn't change that fact. "Look, just let me handle this. I know at least a little of what to do. There's always a way to beat the system."

Falling silent, Harry returned to filling out the page. Draco hunched further into his seat, and though he bowed his head and twitched his leg nervously, the touch of tension and almost petulance to his expression was oddly soothing. It was better than the listlessness, anyway.

By the time Dr Getz called for Draco, poking her head from one of the three consulting rooms with little ceremony, the two waiting patients had already departed. Harry and Draco had stewed in silence since Harry had returned the clipboard to the receptionist, the blank spaces yawning evidence of his ignorance but impossible to remedy. He glanced towards the doctor as she stepped into the room, a short, plump figure in a pantsuit with chin-length hair framing her narrow face.

"Draco?" she asked, glancing between Harry and Draco expectantly.

Harry turned towards Draco, straightening slightly in his seat. "Should I…?" he began but fell silent as Draco eyed him sidelong.

Draco's arms tightened further in their fold across his chest. For a moment, Harry wondered if he would rise from his seat at all. The possibility of him sinking into himself and returning to unshakable silence was increasingly likely with every passing second.

But before Harry could say anything – or Dr Getz could repeat herself – Draco took a slow, deep breath that likely only Harry heard and rose to his feet. "No," he murmured. "I want to go alone."

It stung a little, Harry realised as Draco shuffled towards the doctor. It shouldn't have, because Harry didn't have the right to feel hurt that Draco didn't want him with him – what was Harry to him, anyway? – but it did. He watched as Draco filed into the room, the door clicking shut behind him, and despite that he sat in public and how Hermione had once told him many people would consider it 'a little slovenly', Harry raised a leg to hug his knee to his chest in a tight hold.

Then he waited.

* * *

Draco's departure from Dr. Getz's office wasn't how Harry had anticipated it would be.

He might have expected the time it would take for the initial consultation, even if he knew little enough of what actually happened behind closed doors. He might have expected Draco to exit the room straight-backed and jaw clenched, unable to look the doctor in the eye as he clutched a slip of paper in a brutally tight grip. He might have even expected Draco to be incapable of approaching the receptionist to pay and "book in another appointment for two week's time, Matilda," as Dr Getz requested.

What Harry didn't expect was for Draco to all but run from the waiting room as soon as the transaction was made. He hadn't bargained on needing to chase him down the hallway, nearly crashing into the glass door as it swung back into him with Draco's barrelling passage.

"Draco," Harry called as he stumbled out the street after him.

Draco didn't pause. He was striding down the street, shoulders hunched nearly to his ears. He made a beeline through the crowd, rapidly drawing away, and like a shark coursing through a school of fish, those crowds instinctively parted.

 _What happened?_ Harry thought blankly, but that was all he had time to think. He was leaping down the steps after Draco in an instant, dodging through those same crowds that Draco parted like the Red Sea but remained oblivious to Harry's attempts.

He caught up with him just as Draco made a sharp turn into a narrow alley between buildings. The relative darkness was smothering, and the dreary clouds overhead weren't the only reason for the gloominess. It seemed to emanate off Draco in tangible waves.

Harry didn't get a chance to ask what had happened. He didn't have a moment to even determine what had happened with Dr Getz, because Draco was reaching into his pocket and extracting his wand that Harry hadn't even known he'd brought with him. Extracting, raising, and turning on the spot with an expression of tight determination that looked on the verge of shattering into pieces.

"Wait!" was all Harry managed, grabbing onto Draco's arm. Then the crack of magic snapped in his ears.

It was painful. Apparition should have been discomforting, squeezing and smothering and claustrophobic, but painful? It shouldn't have been, but it was. It was that more than anything that told Harry in those spare split seconds of their travel that Draco wasn't well. That his magic still ached from days of weakness and exhaustion, and that a lack of use had made him rusty. It hurt, wreaking havoc upon Harry's skin like a sizzling burn, curling a hand around his throat, a band around his head in a crushing headache, and stretching his limbs as though he was on a torture rack.

When it stopped, the cessation was almost as painful.

Harry fell. He knew he clutched Draco's sleeve but little else until he landed heavily, painfully, and gasping on top of where Draco had fallen himself. A grunt, almost a cry, heaved from Draco. And in the blind dizziness of the aftermath of pain, Harry scrambled off of him. He slipped, tumbled, and all but collapsed on his arse onto…

Stairs?

Blinking, his dizziness slowly retreating as steadiness resumed, Harry glanced around himself. He saw the extent of his minimal front lawn and the sorry excuse for a garden. He saw the path leading up to the front door, the steps, the looming shape of the Black house above them. Harry was surprised for all of a moment, surprised that Draco had taken them to Grimmauld Place in his flight retreat, and was almost stunned by what such could mean.

Until he saw Draco himself.

He was sprawled on the steps as though he'd simply fallen there – which he likely had. His wand was held tightly in one hand, that slip of paper from the doctor in the other, but he looked like he hardly realised it – which he likely didn't. He was breathing heavily, face bared to the grey melancholy of the clouded sky, and those gasps weren't quite sobs but were as good as. He looked defeated – which Harry supposed he probably was.

Pushing himself upright, Harry made an attempt to stand before giving up on the thought. His skin prickled uncomfortable, and while a glance towards his hands found them not burned and blistered as they felt, his limbs still quivered with an echo of the Apparition pain. Slipping off the edge of the step and onto his knees, and turned towards Draco. He hurt a little, yes, but Draco… Something had happened, and Draco needed help, even if Harry didn't know how to give it to him.

Grasping at an empty well of solutions, Harry watched as Draco lay unmoving, his chest stuttering with breaths that didn't ease as seconds became minutes. The stoic determination he'd worn had shattered and the crinkle of his brow, the tightness of his eyes, bespoke a different kind of pain to that of a nearly disastrous Apparition.

That sight – just seeing it kind in its own way too.

 _When did seeing Draco hurting become so…?_ Harry drew a blank. He didn't know, but he felt it. He felt the wrongness of it. Draco had somehow become important. Not more important than the dead – never more – but important of a different kind.

Harry didn't know, but he brushed the thought aside. It wasn't of consequence at that moment. There weren't any dead that needed Harry, and Draco – Draco did.

Edging forwards slightly, Harry reached out a tentative hand. "Draco?" he said quietly. "Are you…?"

Harry cut himself off before he could stutter the words out. Of course Draco wasn't alright. What a pointless question. Harry swallowed his words before trying anew. "What happened?"

For a moment, Draco didn't reply. Harry wondered if he heard him at all, or if he'd instead withdrawn into himself as he had so often before. Harry's chest tightened at the thought, a different kind of constriction to that which still twinged in an echo from the Apparition. He didn't want that. He didn't want Draco to do that at all.

Finally, however, Draco shifted. His hands tightened upon his forgotten wand, upon the dismissed prescription, and he rolled his head in Harry's direction. His eyes were so, so heavy. "I don't want to talk about it. Any of it."

"Then don't," Harry said immediately. He curled his hands into fists, tucking them into his lap. "Draco, if you don't want to then you don't have to –"

"Why do you call me that?" Draco asked, gazing at him with his dark, pained, bottomless stare.

Harry paused. "Call you Draco, you mean?"

Draco nodded just, and Harry fought an uncomfortable shuffle. Why did he call Draco by name? Harry didn't know, but it felt right. After what he'd seen, after realising that Draco was somehow important to him, how could he so distance himself? It wasn't a good idea, would hurt in the end because Draco would leave, had to leave eventually, but he couldn't help himself.

Harry didn't know how to explain it, but before he could make an attempt, Draco spoke. "It reminds me of my mother. How she would ask and I… I could never say no to her. Not even when I couldn't… when I couldn't find the strength or the care to do it myself, when she asked, I…"

He trailed off, and Harry stared at him with upwelling guilt. That was bad, right? That he reminded Draco of his mother was surely a bad thing. He hadn't meant to, but…

"Sorry," he said, bowing his head. "I didn't mean to."

He felt as much as saw Draco raise a hand to his head, splaying his fingers and covering his face. His knuckles whitened as they squeezed his wand, the pale hawthorn pointed accusingly. For a moment, Harry thought Draco might be crying, but when he spoke it was without a sob. Mostly. His voice did waver just a little.

"I've always hated visiting Healers," he said. "Even with Mother, I hated it. They make me feel sick when I'm not, like there's something wrong with me when there isn't. Not really. When they ask the same old questions that no one with a hint of decency would consider asking of another person…"

Peering towards him without lifting his chin, Harry saw Draco's jaw tighten behind his raised hand. He wanted to speak, to tell Draco that he didn't have to explain himself, but his tongue sat still in his mouth.

"It's bloody hell to be told that there's something wrong with you," Draco continued in a grumble that was almost a growl. "Worse when it's not only a Healer but a – a Muggle doctor who tells you. What kind of fucked up person can't be fixed by magic? Why didn't the potions work when –?"

"You're not fucked up," Harry said quietly. Detachedly. He didn't know what else to say, so echoed the sentiment Hermione had voiced to him years ago. "Just because you're struggling with something, and there's a… a chemical in the brain that's deficient doesn't mean –"

"It's fucked up, Potter, and you know it," Draco said, dropping his hand from his face and rocking his head towards Harry once more. "And the worst part is that I deserve it."

Harry started, drawing away slightly. "What?"

"Everyone says it. The world fucking knows it." Draco pushed himself up to sitting, hands propping him upright and arms shaking slightly, though from the effort or the emotion pouring off of him Harry didn't know. "Maybe it's bloody karma or something –"

"It's not."

"- because I chose the wrong side all those years ago and this is punishment."

"Draco," Harry attempted.

"Maybe it's no more than I deserve, but it still fucking sucks." Draco shook his head sharply, squeezing his eyes closed and hunching in upon himself. "The worst part of it is that I'm sitting here wrapped up in my own self-pity, and Mother has to deal with –" He cut himself off, and his chin began to tremble barely perceivably. He continued in a broken whisper. "She _had_ to deal with it."

Harry didn't know what to say.

"She was sick herself, you know, and she had to deal with me."

Harry never knew what to say.

"Instead of looking for a fucking Healer to help herself, she spent the time looking for one who would treat me. Murdered?" Draco's voice caught on the word and his eyes squeezed more tightly closed. "I know what the papers say, and maybe she was in a way. She died because she helped me more than she helped herself."

Silence met his words, and Harry couldn't break it. He never, ever knew what to say. He'd never been good with words, and actions didn't seem like they would cut it this time. He sat silently, small and helpless and useless, as Draco bowed further and further upon himself and scrubbed his face with a shaking hand.

This was a different Draco. Different to the one Harry knew from school. Different to the near-corpse he'd found in Malfoy Manor weeks before. He was far removed from the listlessness that had consumed him, or the glaring irritation that he'd scarcely embraced, or the attempts at normalcy when Harry thought that, for whatever reason, Draco had actually been trying.

This Draco was different even to the broken boy he'd been in sixth year. That someone could change so much… Harry didn't know what could do that to a person. He wasn't sure he wanted to know.

 _The dead aren't the only ones who are hurting_ , a voice in the back of his mind whispered, and Harry thought he truly realised that for the first time.

He couldn't comfort Draco, though. No words would work because any attempt would be an empty platitude. _Don't say things like that. Your mother loved you and she would have done anything for you. You've got a mental illness and you can't be blamed for it._

Harry knew such words would fall upon deaf ears, or that, if they were heard, Draco would likely brush them aside. He'd possibly even heard them before, from his mother perhaps, and had a plethora of retaliations to rebuff each of them with.

So Harry didn't try. Instead, he reached a hand out to rest upon Draco's knee where his legs were splayed dejectedly before him. "I'm sorry," he said.

"Why?" Draco replied tonelessly. "You didn't do anything."

 _Exactly_ , Harry thought, but bit his lip on the thought. This wasn't about him. Not right now. "I'm sorry that I can't help you," he said, because it was the only truth he could think of and Draco deserved the truth at that moment.

"I don't know if anyone can," Draco replied just as blankly as before. His gaze dropped to the little slip of paper in his hand, the creases radiating like veins from where his fingers gripped mercilessly. "I just… Why do I have to fucking feel this way all the time?"

"That's what the doctor's supposed to help with, right?" Harry said. "With the – the medicine, and all." _God, I sound like such a hypocrite_. How many times had he questioned the very nature of that help himself?

Draco's face tightened. "I don't understand," he said, his voice cracking, and though his eyes remained dry, his expression heart-wrenching. Draco wore a mask of pain and misery, cheeks flushed where they were usually deathly pale. He jaw bulged as muscles clenched, and Harry could only watch as his gaze dropped to the little paper prescription still clutched in his hand.

"I don't understand any of this. The words and the… the…" He flapped the prescription at nothing in particular. Harry wasn't even sure he spoke to him anymore. "What the fuck does this even _mean_? I can't… I can't even understand the writing and – and it doesn't –"

"Draco," Harry said.

"I trusted the potions in the past, but this?"

"Draco, please."

"How could Muggles even…? How could they know that –?"

"Draco." Reaching forward, Harry grasped Draco's wrist where he'd taken to violently flapped the prescription. He held it steady as Draco swung his gaze towards him. "Please. Stop for a second."

Tears that hadn't fallen even once welled in Draco's eyes, but he seemed suddenly angrier than truly upset. Frustrated rather than grieving. Was it better? Was it better than sadness?

 _Yes_ , a voice murmured in the back of Harry's mind. _Anything's better than that bottomless sadness._ Memories of visitors, of worn, weary, and desperate faces rose to mind, and Harry had to agree. Draco was in pain, was angry and floundering – but it was better than grief.

"I don't know," he said in reply to Draco's words. "I don't know how the medication works or if it even will. But we're going to try, alright? You – we're trying. I'll help you."

He shouldn't have said it. He shouldn't have made such a promise, not with circumstances as they were – but Harry couldn't help himself. He could only thank that he had, for meeting Draco's eyes, unblinking and swimming, he saw it.

There was something about those words. Harry didn't know what it was – the offer of help or something else – but whatever it was, it seemed to freeze Draco in place. To ground him. He stared at Harry, jaw tight and expression just as much. But not objectionable. Not angry.

Draco was desperate.

Harry knew that feeling. He could understand it. If anything, it made him want to help all the more. To help Draco rather than just fulfil Narcissa's wish.

Without knowing what he was doing, Harry gently tugged the prescription from Draco's hand. He didn't let go of his fingers, however. Instead, in an act of intimacy he'd never attempted before, one that felt so strange and foreign to consider, he grasped Draco's cold fingers and squeezed them.

Draco just stared. He stared, and stared. After a long moment, he lowered his gaze to their hands. A pause, an even longer moment, then Harry heard his audible swallow before his lips trembled, parting.

"You'll help me," he said.

It was less of a question and more of a statement of fact, but Harry nodded nonetheless. _I shouldn't promise, but –_ "I will."

Draco closed his eyes and nodded in heavy, resigned acceptance. There was no further reply, nothing more, and he seemed to sag into himself where he sat, a huddled figure, bowed with the weight of the world on his shoulders.

Harry might not know what to say. He might not know what to do much of the time, either. But seeing Draco like that, his resolution to try his utmost solidified. Draco might be acting more for his mother's sake than his own, but if that grain of motivation would serve to keep him alive, he would use it.

When Harry rose to his feet, he dragged Draco with him. They retreated into the quiet safety of the Black house without another word.

* * *

It was a struggle. All of it was a struggle.

For Harry to take the trip to the nearest pharmacy a brief walk away. For him to leave Draco behind where he'd retreated to his room as though the morning had exhausted him. It was a struggle to accept the unassuming little box that the assistant handed him with warnings to 'keep an eye out for side effects' and 'be aware of any dizziness or drowsiness you might experience'. Harry had never taken medication like that before, and even though it wasn't for himself it felt somehow terrifying.

What was hardest, however, was handing it to Draco.

Not that he needed the encouragement. Not really, which was a relief given that Harry had no idea what to say to encourage in the first place. A relief, and yet utterly stupefying, because Harry didn't know if he could have accepted the box himself. He stood in the doorway, staring at Draco's back where he lay in his bed, and couldn't bring himself to take a step inside.

It was both surprising and unprecedented when Draco glanced towards him. After a time, something, some sense or some sound that Harry made, must have alerted him to his presence. With the barest turn of his head, he peered over his shoulder. His eyes were heavy, a little reddened.

"Did you…?" he began.

"Yes," Harry replied quietly.

"So I should…?"

"Probably."

Draco blinked. How he managed to deflate and slump further upon himself when he was already lying Harry didn't know, but somehow he did. Then, with more effort than it seemed he could overcome, Draco heaved himself into sitting.

"The doctor told you how to take this, right?" Harry asked, edging into the room.

Draco nodded.

"Do you need…?" _Anything?_

Draco shook his head.

Harry turned his gaze down to his hands as they fiddled with the little box. Why it was such a challenge, he didn't know. If it could help, it was a good thing, right? Wasn't it? It couldn't be 'bad' or 'shameful' if it could help. Anything to help him would be better than Draco lying unresponsive and fading in bed for hours and days on end.

So why did it feel so…?

Swallowing, Harry smothered the feelings that rose within him. This wasn't about him. It wasn't even for him. This was about Draco, about helping him get better, so that he could step out into the world and live once more. Just like with each of Harry's visitors, that was his role: to help him so he could go on. Draco had understood he needed the crutch James spoke of, and Draco had taken potions before. He'd accepted that necessity. _He_ could overcome the bloody stigma that niggled in the back of Harry's mind with infuriating persistence and unshakeable irrelevance.

This was for Draco, so Harry would bite his lip to any comment because he cared. Slowly, unexpectedly, and a little uncomprehendingly, Harry had grown to care.

He held out the little box, then paused. "Should I keep a hold of this?" he asked. "For afterwards?"

Draco regarded him sidelong. For a moment, something almost like exasperation flickered in his eyes. It disappeared almost as quickly as it arose, but Harry was relieved to have seen it. Exasperation was better than listless melancholy. Infinitely better.

"I have taken such medicines before, you know," Draco said. "Which is more than you've done, isn't it?"

Harry accepted the reprimand of his words. "But those were potions, right?"

"It's the same thing."

"If you need –"

"Potter," Draco interrupted him. He closed his eyes briefly before peering up at Harry again. His expression was tight, somehow pleading, as though he needed Harry to accept it. To let him be. To neglect his questioning of Muggle medicines and Draco's autonomy, because Draco questioned himself enough for the both of them. That silent realisation within Harry was so profound that he almost heard it as words.

"Just let me do this," Draco said lowly. "Alright?"

There was something in his words. Some unspoken meaning that Harry wasn't sure he grasped – or at least not until a flickering return of memory, of the dining hall and the shattered bottle, the words _you don't trust me_ ringing in his ears. A flush of regret swept through him before he was nodding, holding out the box once more.

"Of course," Harry said. "You've got this."

He hoped Draco heard the unspoken meaning of which Harry wasn't even sure he understood himself. He thought that maybe he did, if just a little. What other reason could the barest hint of a smile, so small as to be almost invisible, ghost across his lips?

It was the first time Draco had come close to smiling since Harry had found him.

* * *

A/N: Another chapter already? What even, right?

I just have to say a massive, gushing thanks to the beautiful people who have been reviewing this story. You've honestly invoked the motivation from me! Thank you particularly to Princess and Arodet - you guys... I love you. Thank you so, so much for your lovely words xx

I'm sorry to everyone for the rather sombre tone of this story, but I'm really so happy that its resounded with so many people. Bless you wonderful readers and commenters alike and I'll see you next time!


	10. Chapter 10 - Breathe and Step

**Chapter 10: Breathe and Step**

The first week, Draco didn't get better.

Harry hadn't known he'd expected him to until he didn't, but his limited knowledge of medicine had set a precedent that had him frowning when the medication didn't shape up. Memory of a sick Dudley when they were kids together, of the sickly-sweet smelling syrup that Harry could almost taste from half a room away – that meant healing, and getting better. He'd often wondered how it would taste, that miraculous medicine that dragged Dudley from bedridden to bouncing off walls and as objectionable as ever within a handful of days. Harry had never tried that medicine himself, but it had always seemed a little magical.

Draco barely moved for days. The medicine, of which Harry couldn't help but glance towards each day he stepped inside Draco's room, was partaken of, but it didn't seem to make a difference. Shouldn't it be making a difference? Shouldn't it be… fixing him?

"How are you feeling?" Harry asked the first day after their visit to the doctors as he slipped through the doorway, breakfast in hand.

Draco didn't reply.

"Draco?"

Still no reply. Draco didn't even roll towards him, didn't raise his head in response. When Harry skirted his bed to peer down at him, it was to find him staring sightlessly towards the grimy window as he'd taken to doing so much over the past weeks.

It was horrible. Harry hadn't realised he'd expected Draco to be better, to be back to how he was supposed to be, until that moment. He hadn't realised he'd almost assumed he would step back into the room to find Draco as the obnoxious git he'd been when they were at school together.

But that prideful schoolboy – that wasn't Draco. Not anymore. Harry wondered if that Draco even existed at all beneath the depression, or whether he'd been chewed away entirely. What remained after that? After his mother had died and his world had fallen apart again as it already had with Voldemort's defeat, was Draco really the same person at all?

Draco didn't join Harry for breakfast that day. He didn't eat at all for any of the successive meals either, and Harry didn't know what to do. Was he supposed to force him to eat? Was he supposed to drag him upright and urge him into action, impose normalcy upon him as Draco seemed incapable of assuming himself? It didn't seem right somehow.

"It will likely take time," James comforted him in his typical hushed whisper when Harry joined him in the kitchen that evening. "Your job is to make sure he doesn't slip to far."

"Is this how it was with Remus, then?" Harry asked.

James didn't quite nod. Instead, his expression grew pensive. "I don't think anyone's experience is necessarily identical, but that it takes time? Yes, I suppose Remus was the same. I came to understand that he needed that time and that I couldn't force it upon him."

"What do I do if he doesn't get better? What if the medication doesn't do anything? What if he gets worse?"

"That, kiddo, is when you have to act. But you'll have to work out for yourself when far is far enough."

So Harry waited. He didn't push, even though Draco had asked him for help and Harry had promised to give it to him. James was right; this was the kind of help he could offer but shouldn't impose. Not yet.

He still visited Draco's room for every meal, and he still sat with him for a time afterwards, though he didn't force him into anything. The hours of stagnation felt long and disheartening, but it was alright. It made it worth it when Draco sat up at picked at his dinner on the second evening without any particular or apparent incentive. He didn't say anything, but he didn't need to. Harry hadn't realised how satisfying it could be to simply see someone eat until that moment. It was even better when he slowly began to keep up the habit.

Or it was mostly better.

"I don't know if he's actually going to get actually any healthier," Harry told his mother as they sat, each curled into their own chairs, in the library where Lily always appeared.

"It's only been a week, Harry," Lily said. "Don't rush it."

"Only a week?" Harry dropped his chin onto his knee, wrapping his arms around his shin. "A week's a long time."

"Not for this kind of thing, I don't think."

"Would you know?"

Lily tipped her head curiously. She didn't seem offended by Harry's words, which he was grateful for only in hindsight. He hadn't meant to sound accusing. "I wouldn't call myself an expert," she said slowly, in that same whisper of words that all of Harry's visitors spoke with, "but I like to think I was empathetic once upon a time."

Harry could accept that. He had certainly never considered himself in such a light before, so he supposed he would take her word for it.

Draco didn't speak after the first day that Harry gave him his medication. He started eating, it was true, but he didn't speak. He barely even looked at Harry as he entered Regulus' old bedroom that had become Draco's in such a short time, and Harry didn't quite understand exactly why. Or at least he didn't for sure. He could assume though.

Maybe Draco really did hate him as he'd claimed weeks before. Maybe he resented him for saving his life, for keeping him at Grimmauld Place, for taking him to the doctor's. Maybe he regretted asking for Harry's help at all, which stung more than Harry would have thought possible. He hadn't known he'd cared until that possibility arose, but when it did he was struck by the knowledge that… that he…

That Harry actually wanted to help Draco. He wanted to help him for more than just keeping him alive. It felt good to be helping someone who wouldn't disappear as soon as he'd fulfilled their goals. Or at least who wouldn't vanish entirely; leaving the house as Draco would, should, had to, was distinctly different to leaving the world of the living.

But Draco wouldn't look at him. He seemed utterly lost in his own thoughts. The familiar smell of Death that had lingered over him, waxing and waning for weeks, hadn't reared its head and maybe even seemed a little thinner, but Draco still lingered in silence. Sometimes he stared, but he didn't seem to see Harry where he sat across the room in the alcove of the window. That stung a little, too.

"I'm sorry," Harry said at the end of that first week of slow, tentative renewal of the capacity to eat once more and slowly, tentatively beginning to look a little less of a corpse again.

Draco didn't reply, but Harry didn't expect him to. Seated in his alcove, he stared out of the rain-flecked window as he often did. "I expect you'll probably hate me for doing all of this, whatever 'this' is, and I'm sorry for that. But I don't regret it, and I'm not going to stop helping you, Draco. And –"

Harry paused. He didn't even know what he was saying, but the words demanded to be spoken for reasons he couldn't understand. Raising a hand, Harry trailed his fingers down the glass of the window, chasing the line of a droplet. Funny, how it didn't feel cool as he knew it should. Harry hadn't truly felt cold for a long time.

"Even if you go back to absolutely loathing me like you did when we were kids, I don't mind," Harry murmured, speaking more to himself than to Draco. "I just kind of want you to get better, Draco. People shouldn't be so close to Death when they're alive."

Draco didn't reply. He could have been asleep for all Harry knew; he didn't glance over his shoulder to check. It was only when darkness had swallowed the length of Grimmauld Place and the stuttering light of streetlamps had long illuminated the road in their wan attempt at brightness that Draco spoke in the barest murmur.

"I don't hate you."

Just that. Barely a handful of words and almost too quiet to make out – but Harry heard, and that slight tightness in his chest he hadn't really allowed himself to acknowledge eased just a little. He didn't glance towards Draco, but he felt himself almost smile as he stared out the window.

Harry slept in Draco's room that night. He couldn't bring himself to leave.

How long was it supposed to take to work? How long until it became apparent that it wasn't really working at all? Would Draco get better? Was Harry supposed to do something? He didn't know, and that not knowing was perhaps the worst part. If Draco he needed Harry to do something…

Harry wanted to help, but he simply didn't know what 'help' entailed. Stopping things from getting worse didn't seem like enough, but all Harry could do was sit in his room alongside him for hours on end each day.

As it happened, Draco managed for himself. He managed better than Harry would have considered him capable of given he was all but silently and listlessly bedridden for days. In all of Harry's insufficient attempts at assistance, it was Draco who managed it for himself.

And it happened when Harry got another visitor.

Most of the time, visitors were quiet. Silent, even. A select few spoke, and those that Harry had known, those he should have known, could even hold conversations.

Even fewer erupted into violent wails that seemed to shake the house on its foundations.

It had only happened twice before. Only twice, but memory of each instance was enough that Harry didn't tear through the house in a frenzy before the sheer, blood-curdling screeches. Not like the first time that seemed so long ago. Some things, however, weren't forgotten no matter how long ago they occurred.

He was sleeping in Draco's room. It had become a habit, and Harry found he almost couldn't help himself. The smell of Death that hung from Draco wasn't quite as potent as it had once been, but it still lingered. It was still sad, and wrong, and he still longed to alleviate it. Harry didn't know if his presence would do anything, but he could hope. He could try.

The scream tore him from his sleep, however. It was echoing. It was desperate. It shuddered through the walls in a way that Harry almost couldn't believe he was the only one to hear. He was dragged into consciousness in a flurry and found himself crashing to the floor beside his alcove before he'd even opened his eyes.

"Wha…?" he gasped groggily, pushing himself upright and reflexively straightening his glasses.

The screams.

"What the -?"

They were pained, and so desperate, and so… so…

Scrambling from the floor, Harry didn't even spare a glance for Draco's bed before he was charging from the room. He crashed into the wall opposite the door, rebounded off those of the hallway, and all but vaulted down the creaking stairs. The house groaned in sympathetic protest, but it was barely a murmur beneath the visitor's cries.

He was a young man. Or a boy, Harry realised, as he stumbled down the last of the stairs and into the entryway. He had to have been younger than Harry and that made it all the worse, because those that screamed…

"Stop," Harry said, skidding to his knees before the boy where he'd crumpled to the ground. "Please, stop screaming."

The boy didn't hear him. Or perhaps he ignored him, Harry wasn't sure. His head was bowed, his back bent, and he hunched upon himself as though afflicted with stomach pains. And the screams. The screams shredded the air like knives tearing through silk.

He was small. He was thin, almost feeble. He was so unintimidating that the thought of him being murdered was one of the most painful things Harry could consider. But it had happened. To the screamers, that was what had happened. And it was horrible.

Reaching twitching fingers forwards, Harry brushed his hand through the boy's insubstantial shoulder. "Please," he begged, because he couldn't – couldn't _stand_ the screaming, so loud and pained and – "Please, just stop."

He didn't stop.

"I can't – I can't help you if you don't –" Harry's fingers curled through the coldness of the boy as he twitched in the throughs of his wailing, his rocking, his frantic clutching of his face.

"How can I help?"

More screaming.

"Please, can you just –? Tell me what I can do? _What can I do?"_

The boy's voice cracked and broke, but it didn't stifle. His shoulders shuddered, but he didn't cease his rocking. If anything, the compulsive motions grew even more rapid.

"I don't know what to do!" Harry all but pleaded, and he was only detachedly aware that his voice was raised almost in a shout. He dropped his hand into a fist onto his knee, bowing his head and squeezing his eyes closed. "Please just stop. Please, just… just tell me what it is I can do."

His ears rung. They echoed and throbbed with each renewed scream that Harry knew everyone else in the world was deaf to. It hurt to hear, and more than just for the noise. Harry felt rocked to his core, and every muscle shuddered as though lashed by the sound.

How long it lasted, Harry didn't know. He hated it, wanted to flee from it, but he couldn't, and he couldn't do anything to stop it. He was aware he still spoke, still pleaded, but he couldn't have said what words tumbled from his lips. Harry couldn't open his eyes again. He couldn't look at the boy because…

He was small. He was huddled. He was so unremarkably plain and unintimidating it was pathetic. But worst of all, the stain of bloody red that smeared across his throat was a horror that spelled out his death. Harry didn't want to see that. He was used to it, used to sometimes seeing the evidence of his visitors' deaths, but some of them were far worse than others.

"… so sorry," he heard himself whisper at one moment, eyes still closed and head still bowed. "I'm so sorry that happened to you. I just… what can I do? What can I do to help? Please just tell me what I can…"

It took Harry a moment to realise that his words were only audible for the silencing of the screams. They still resounded like echoes in his ears, but the source had stopped. Their absence was as deafening as the shrieks had been.

Slowly, almost hesitantly, Harry opened his eyes. He swallowed thickly, forcing down the choking weight that had settled there and had grown more expansive with each moment. Finally, he dropped his gaze to the worn carpet where the boy had been but moments before.

It was empty. Expectedly, but Harry was still caught in the hollow emptiness of the hallway before him. He stared and could hardly blink for where had been and yet was no longer the visitor who'd been murdered. The one who couldn't move on and who, in all likelihood, Harry wouldn't be able to help at all. The others he hadn't. The others had simply left after dragging him through a handful of sleepless nights.

The hallway seemed to echo too. The dust motes that incessantly hung in the air drifted with lazy carelessness. Harry raised a hand to knuckle a stinging eye. He wasn't crying, but it felt a little like –

"What was that?"

The quite voice, the muted words, were so low that Harry thought for a moment they might have been from another visitor. He glanced towards the stairwell, half expecting to find Fred appeared in watchful wait at the spot he always arose.

It wasn't Fred. His seat was filled, but it wasn't Fred. Draco, thin and pale, worn and wearing world-weariness that dragged at his shoulders, sat with his hands wedged between his knees. His lips thin and expression were solemn, his eyes hooded and heavy. And he was staring at Harry.

Harry couldn't be bothered to move. Some visitors took the strength out of him, but many did so more than others. The murdered? They were the most exhausting. Their screams clung to Harry as more than just echoes of memory; he could feel them with the weight of their violent death. That Draco had actually climbed from bed for the first time in days was astounding, but he couldn't find it within himself to be delighted or even satisfied.

Sighing, Harry briefly closed his eyes again. "What was what?" he said, dropping his chin to his chest.

"That," Draco replied. "All that shouting."

Harry cracked an eye open. "You heard it?" he asked, a buzz of surprise welling within him.

"Of course. It was impossible not to hear you, even three floors up."

Harry blinked. Then he closed his eyes once more. Oh. That was it. Draco hadn't heard the boy but Harry himself. He sighed heavily once more. "It was nothing," he murmured.

"People don't shout like that for nothing," Draco replied, just as quietly. "They don't say what you said –"

"Don't," Harry cut him off. He didn't want to hear a word of what he'd said, of how he'd pleaded. "I don't… I don't want to hear it. Please."

Silence hung between them amidst the dust motes. Draco didn't speak. Harry didn't move. The stasis of the moment was blessed just for a few seconds, and then Harry opened his eyes once more. Draco was still watching him with something almost like interest for the first time in days.

"It was a visitor," he said. Another swallow did him no good, but he attempted it anyway. "He was loud. And upset. And…" Harry turned back to the place the boy had been, where he would likely be for the next few days before the residual terror of his death faded enough to allow him to leave. It would happen. Eventually, it would happen. Nothing lasted forever but Death itself.

"What happened to him?"

Harry glanced towards Draco once more. His voice was a little hoarse, likely the result of his days of muteness. Harry stared at him for a long moment. He probably shouldn't tell him. He didn't know whether it was right to be bubble-wrapping Draco or not in his somewhat wavering state, but maybe he shouldn't tell him he'd just seen a kid who'd been murdered.

Except that Harry abruptly found that he couldn't help himself. The words tumbled forth before he truly knew what he was going to say.

"Most of the time they don't speak," he said. "Most of the time they can't. But people like him, like that kid? When they've gone a really bad way, it's like it's spilling out all over the place."

"What…?" Draco began.

"He went a really bad way," Harry said, unable to hold his tongue. "I could see it all over him. The ones that have been murdered – they're the worst because they didn't know it was coming. Even worse than the car crashes, or – or the diseases, or the deterioration."

Draco slowly straightened in his seat. "Murdered."

The burning returned to Harry's eyes as he turned back to the empty patch of thin carpet. "It's worse because I can't do anything," he said, hearing his voice warble and unable to do anything to steady them. He hardly cared. The words kept coming, unspoken ever before but pouring forth as though they'd been waiting for the opportunity. "I try, and I've tried, and sometimes the visitors come and I can actually help them, but… but sometimes there's nothing. How can you help someone who's been killed? When someone actually _killed_ them? How is it possible to fix something like that?"

He took a shuddering breath, raising a hand to slip his fingers behind his glasses and press until he saw stars. He wasn't crying, couldn't remember the last time he'd cried, but it helped a little to suppress the burning. It did nothing for the tightness in his throat, or the weight dragging on his shoulders as much as it hollowed out his chest. It would always remain because ultimately Harry could do nothing. People came to him, they needed him, but sometimes he could do nothing to help them, no matter how much he wanted to.

"Shit, Potter."

Swallowing through the tightness in his throat once more, Harry glanced back towards Draco. His gaze was lowered to his knees, his fingers locked in a white-knuckled clasp, and Harry could see the line of a vein in his forehead.

"What?" he asked.

Draco shook his head. "Shit. You're fucked up."

Harry stared at him. Then he huffed with a resigned chuckle that was barely laughter at all. "Yeah. Definitely."

"I thought I was bad."

"Aren't you?"

Draco glanced up at him. His eyes were very dark, and more attentive than they'd been in… in Harry couldn't remember how long. "Yes. But at least mine only involves me. You've got a whole horde of people dragging you down."

"It's not that bad," Harry murmured, turning in his seat until he was properly facing Draco. "Not really."

"It's not?"

Harry shook his head. "I could be a murdered kid who doesn't even realise he's dead."

Draco fell silent at that. Then he nodded slowly. "It could always be worse."

Harry nodded. That was true. It didn't mean that what happened to Draco, what happened to any of the other visitors or to anyone else slogging through their daily drudgery, wasn't a struggle. But it could always be worse. If anything, it simply made Harry long to help all the more.

He sat on the floor next to the empty stretch of worn carpet where the boy had sat for a long time. Draco sat with him without comment, and it might not have been much, but at least it was something.

* * *

Draco started coming out of his room after that. Harry wasn't sure the main reason why. It could have been that his medication started working enough to help him. It could have been that the day after the murdered boy arrived they had to make the necessary revisit to the doctor. Or maybe something about talking of the visitor had been a change.

Maybe, possibly and just maybe, he actually got sick enough of his room to venture out. That would have been somehow wonderful.

"He just screams?" Draco said the first day, sitting on the step beside where Fred always appeared.

"Just screams," Harry replied, slumped heavily on the floor with his ears ringing of those very screams even in their absence.

"Have you tried talking to him?" Draco asked the second day.

"Of course. He's too lost. I doubt he'll ever hear anything again."

"How did he die?" was asked on the third day.

Harry turned slowly towards him. He knew from the previous two visitors that it was impossible to sleep on the days he encountered a murder victim. Exhaustion weighed upon him and no amount of painting walls or staring out of windows, not even assisting and actually helping another visitor when they'd appeared the previous afternoon, was able to distract.

Harry didn't know why Draco asked what he did. It could have been some morbid fascination with Death, some leftover urge from when he'd made his own attempt at embracing it barely weeks before. Harry didn't know, and he almost didn't care. Almost.

"His throat," Harry said quietly, raising his hand to his own neck in sympathy. The pulsing redness that still throbbed from the dead boy's injury, staining his plain shirt already mucked and torn into disrepair, welled before his eyes in a glaring vision of horror. "It looks like a puncture wound, I guess."

Draco's sharp inhalation was almost a hiss. "Someone stabbed him?" he asked, voice hoarse with more than disuse.

"I suppose."

"So you see when a person…?"

Harry waited. When Draco didn't continue, he prompted him. "When someone what?"

But Draco only shook his head. "Fuck, Potter. That's… that's fucked up."

Nodding, Harry lowered his gaze to his hands. "It is. That anyone could take someone else's life like that."

"That wasn't what I was referring to," Draco said quietly.

Harry didn't really know what he meant by that, but he didn't ask for an explanation. Instead, he only remained in silent wait for Draco to continue. When no further words were offered, he abandoned the conversation entirely. It wasn't important, and he didn't have the energy to care. Not at that moment.

For four days the boy returned. Four days he screamed and wailed, and each of those days he faded just slightly. When Harry watched him slowly, slowly disappear on that fourth day for the last time, his cries and sobs, his frantic gasps of distress, were so muffled that Harry actually heard Draco shuffle down the stairs and take his seat.

Neither of them spoke into the absence that followed. Not for a long time. Finally, as the detached listlessness slowly faded from Harry's mind, he sighed heavily and straightened from his slouch. "I'm really sorry I couldn't do anything," he murmured to the disappeared boy.

"What?" Draco asked.

Harry shook his head. "Nothing. He's just gone."

"You mean like…?"

"For good."

"You can tell?"

Harry nodded. His hand reached without intention towards the patch of carpet, fingers rubbing on the smooth, worn carpet. "Yeah. Every time."

"Is that a good thing? Does it make you happy?"

Harry turned towards the stairs. Draco regarded him as he always did, his gaze intent and eyes slowly blinking, hands pressed between his knees. He rarely spoke outside of those moments, just as he rarely stepped from his room except when the boy arrived. It didn't matter, not really, but it was vaguely interesting.

Just a little, though. Not quite enough that Harry could be wholly distracted from the magical coldness on the carpet that only he could feel, the tinge of wrongness in the air and the faint hint of pungent Death that lingered. It was a smell he didn't think he would ever forget, regardless of how long he lived.

"Happy?" he echoed, and Draco only blinked in reply. Harry shook his head. "Draco, Death is never happy. It's horrible, and it hurts, and the people that are left behind will always carry the weight of it, even if they forget the one who died."

"Everyone?" Draco asked lowly. He shook his own head. "Some people don't have anyone to miss them."

Harry hitched a shoulder in a shrug. He couldn't bring himself to argue, not with any vigour, but speaking the truth was different. "Everyone leaves a shadow behind them. Everyone, even those who think they don't have anyone to leave behind."

"You don't know that," Draco murmured, shoulders hunching slightly.

"And neither would you if you left," Harry said simply. "Neither would I. Because we'd be gone."

Draco stared at him for a long moment. Then he puffed a sigh of laughter that hadn't the barest hint of amusement. "You're so fucking messed up, Potter," he said.

There wasn't a hint of derision, or anger, or resentment to his words, but even if there had been, Harry didn't think he would have cared. He could only shrug again, gaze turning back to the empty carpet. "Yeah. Probably."

* * *

Week three dawned with a feather-light touch of chilled fingers to Harry's cheek. He blinked his eyes open, squinting into the greyness of morning light spilling through the window beside him. It took a moment to recall that he'd slept in the alcove in Draco's room again.

Then he turned towards the Puppy Girl who he could all but instinctively sense at his side. She was familiar enough for that now. Her wide eyes and pale face peered up at him with solemnity that shouldn't have been possible of a five-year-old. With a hand, she grazed her fingers down Harry's cheek as had become her habit and left trails of coolness in her wake.

Harry sighed. He straightened from his awkward position, rolling out the kinks in his shoulders. "Have you found another one?" he asked.

The girl didn't need clarification anymore. She likely never had. Harry didn't know where her fixation with puppies had come from, but it was clearly the element that held her captured and unable to move onwards. If Harry could only find a way to free her from her obsession…

"What is it?"

Startling, Harry glanced towards Draco's bed, and then to Draco as he pushed himself up from his pillow. Draco, who was almost always asleep when Harry woke in the morning, but who evidence had suggested had particularly good hearing, even in his sleep. Maybe Harry's simple words had been enough to urge him awake

Harry turned his gaze briefly down to the little girl at his side. She stared at him unblinkingly, thumb rising to slip between her lips, and didn't spare Draco a moment of her attention. It wasn't atypical of her to ignore anyone but Harry, though it did sometimes feel a little jarring, especially when others couldn't see and thus effectively ignored her in return.

But Draco was a little different in that regard. Oddly enough, even with what scare interactions he'd had with any of Harry's visitors, he seemed different. Hermione still seemed to consider Harry delusional half the time, if only half. The Weasleys had turned from him in a fit of grief. Everyone else… well, the rest of the world couldn't know. Harry couldn't let them. Even those he was forced to confront on behalf of his visitors – Harry couldn't let them truly know.

But Draco had never questioned the validity of Harry's claim. Granted, he'd rarely spoken to Harry at all over the past few weeks, but after the first moment that Harry had explained, when he'd told him of Narcissa, he'd known Draco had believed him. How could he not? Draco had abided by Harry's words at Narcissa's wishes. He'd withdrawn his heartfelt desire to simply stop because his mother had wanted it.

No one had ever done that before. Just as no one had ever sat alongside Harry while he was with a visitor in distress. Draco had been the only one to ever ask exactly why Harry painted every wall he could get his hands on, too.

Harry had barely truly spoken of his visitors before, but he supposed there wasn't anything wrong with doing so. Not when it was to Draco.

"There's a little girl here," Harry said quietly. He held out his hand in offering, and the girl rested her own tiny, splayed fingers in his palm. "She comes to ask for my help sometimes."

Draco was heavy-eyed and sagging into his blankets even as he pushed himself up to sitting. He frowned slightly, stared at Harry, and then deliberately lowered his gaze to Harry's raised hand. "You mean she's…?"

"Here." Harry curled his hand around the little girl's. Even if he wasn't holding it, the weight of it too insubstantial to clasp, he could feel its coldness. "She comes fairly often."

"Why?" Draco asked, only to shake his head a moment later. "No, that's not right. You said most of them can't talk, didn't you?"

 _He remembered._ For some reason, that meant something. Even if Draco hated him, and even if he only spoke out of wary curiosity, it meant something that he remembered that small fact. Even better was that he was talking at all. It felt somehow comforting that he would bother; that after weeks of listlessness that was too worrying to leave him alone in, he was motivated enough to speak.

Was Draco getting better? Harry didn't know. He didn't know if people could just get better because of pills or if they needed something more. Hermione had spoken of therapists, but maybe that wasn't for Draco. He'd spoken of them too for that matter, and Harry wasn't inclined to force him to relive that particular experience. He wasn't that cruel.

"They can't," Harry finally said, turning back to the little girl. "But she doesn't need to. She shows me."

"Shows you?" Draco asked.

"She takes me to see what she wants to show me."

"And that is?"

"Puppies."

Draco stared at him, blinking slowly, and sleep gradually retreated from his gaze. He knuckled an eye. "Puppies?"

Harry nodded, watching as the little girl made an phantom impression of tugging on his hand. He slipped down from the alcove and stood. "I don't know why she does it – maybe it has something to do with what happened in her life – but I think it's what's keeping her here. If it might help her to move on, I've got to at least come with her, don't I?"

Allowing himself to be effectively pulled from the room by what was barely more than a brush of cold air, Harry started towards the door. Only to be stopped as Draco twisted in his seat to follow his passage. "Will you be coming back?" he asked.

Harry paused with his free hand resting upon the doorframe. He glanced over his shoulder. "What?"

Draco shifted a little awkwardly in his nest of blankets. He dropped his gaze to where his fingers plucked idly at his blankets. "Forget it. It was just a question."

"Draco, I'm –"

"Whatever, Potter. It was just a stupid question."

Harry didn't think it was stupid. He didn't think it was stupid at all. If anything, he thought it was maybe a little bit wonderful. If Draco was interested enough in his whereabouts to ask where he was going and if he was going to return, that was surely a good thing, wasn't it? It was certainly better than dismissive listlessness.

"It's not a stupid question," Harry said. "And I will be. I don't know when, seeing as it takes a while to go anywhere without magic, but I will."

"Without magic," Draco echoed. "I don't understand that. You mean you can't -?"

"No," Harry said, shaking his head. "Not anymore. I generally just walk back home when she disappears again, which she always does seeing as I can't…" _Since I can't help her_. Harry glanced down to where the girl peered owlishly up at him, thumb still stuck in her mouth.

"It would be easier if you could Apparate back," Draco said quietly.

Harry nodded. "It would be."

"But you can't."

"No."

"Because of…?"

"I don't know. I just can't anymore."

Draco had never asked about Harry's magic, either. Or not more than in passing, and certainly not in the past few weeks. He still didn't ask. Instead, quite unexpectedly, he swung his legs from his bed and rose to his feet. He was tall, had always been taller than Harry, but looked even taller and spindlier because of that thinness.

Nonetheless, and despite any weakness he might be fighting against, Draco stepped almost tentatively towards Harry. He seemed to fight with himself when he stopped at Harry's side, mouth opening and closing before managing to speak. "Alright, then," he said finally. "Then I'll come with you."

Harry stared up at him. He almost couldn't believe his ears. "What?'

Draco's lips thinned, and even that touch of disgruntlement was somehow satisfying to see. He'd worn little enough expression in the past few days. "Unless you have an objection to that?"

Harry could only continue to stare. Draco was out of bed without the trigger of a screaming visitor and Harry's shouted replies. He was speaking without direct provocation. He was… he was offering to…

"Do you?"

Harry gave a mental shake of his head, discarding the stupefied thoughts. A slight frown had settled on Draco's brow and he seemed almost nervous. Harry had never thought to see him like that.

"Do I have a problem with it?" he asked. He shook his head before Draco could reply. "Of course not. You're free to do what you like, Draco."

"Am I really?" Draco replied, a touch of sarcasm to his words that was barely discernible.

Harry peered up at him for a moment, hearing the unspoken reminder. He didn't like it. He didn't want Draco to consider him a warden of the pseudo-prison Harry had forced him intoHarry h. He nodded. "Of course."

When he turned and left, he didn't glance back over his shoulder. It was a feeling, however, that told him Draco followed. And it was only a brief glance over his shoulder to determine that he'd scooped up his wand from where it had lain neglected on the nightstand for days.

Harry didn't comment on that fact. He didn't breathe a word about Draco's subtle wand waving to slip shoes onto his own feet, the magic that was just a little bit sparking and rusty, or that he followed Harry. He didn't say anything about the fact that, if anything, something almost like delight welled within him as he stepped out of Grimmauld Place with Draco in tow. He'd never experienced that before; wandering in search of reprieve for his visitors was never a happy pastime.

But if Draco was coming, was actually motivated enough to climb out of bed and join him – that was surely worth some satisfaction, wasn't it?


	11. Chapter 11 - Stopping and Starting

**Chapter 11: Stopping and Starting**

On October the thirty-first, Draco came down from his room for breakfast.

That had never happened before, or not since that last day of September, at least. Harry hadn't expected it to, had barely begun to grow accustomed to Draco's tentative appearances outside of his bedroom. Those appearances were growing less startling, less sparse, and lasted a little longer. In the living room, if only to sit on a couch. Down in the library, though not to pick up a book. Sitting on the front door step, though never stepping further unless they had a doctor's visit.

That morning had been the same as always, and Harry hadn't expected anything different. He was surprised in a good way, however, to be proved wrong.

Waking up in the window alcove, the seat that had become a nearly permanent bed for Harry over the past weeks, he groaned slightly as he straightened. It wasn't a particularly comfortable seat, even with the pair of pillows and thick blanket to wrap around himself. Nevertheless, Harry couldn't bring himself to sleep in his own room. It felt somehow wrong to leave Draco alone.

Harry wasn't necessarily concerned he would hurt himself, but he didn't want Draco to be alone. Not that.

Releasing his arms from where they wrapped stiffly around his knees, Harry wavered to standing. He stretched. He made a half-hearted attempt to fold the blanket and spared a glance out of the window for the grey dawn, the splatters of droplets that could have been rain as likely as simple morning dew peppering the glass. Then, to the sound of Draco shifting slightly in his bed, he padded quietly from the room.

Kreacher was birthing chaos in the kitchen when Harry stepped within. He edged along the wall as he always did, pressing himself out of the way of potentially flying utensils, and tucked himself into one of the seats at the old, pockmarked table.

"Good morning, Kreacher," he said, as much to himself as to the elf who was even then juggling a pair of skillets.

"Master should wait for Kreacher to finish his cooking before he enters the kitchen," Kreacher grumbled with his usual disgruntlement. He squinted towards Harry, not slowing in his work. "Better yet, Master could be abed and waiting for Kreacher to bring him his breakfast."

"Hell, I'm not that much of a lazy sod," Harry said. "If I'm able to get up in the morning then there's no reason for you to wait on me."

Kreacher muttered something beneath his breath as he trotted to the sidelong counter. The skillets dropped to the top with more force than seemed necessary. "The Malfoy brat is always abed."

"He has an excuse," Harry said, folding his arms onto the table and his dropping his chin atop them.

"He is not having an excuse."

"He's not well, Kreacher."

"Brats cannot be unwell for weeks on end without improvement and no signs of being true sickness." Kreacher flung a spoonful of butter into a sizzling pan with a _splat_. "The Malfoy brat is feigning."

Harry shook his head slightly but didn't reply. He couldn't expect Kreacher to understand. Harry himself might not fully understand what Draco was going through, but he'd had his days of listlessness. He'd experienced those moments when productivity just seemed like too much work, was too difficult to even contemplate.

 _Let Draco rest_ , he thought. _Even if he's not physically tired, being mentally drained is exhausting._

Harry allowed his eyes to slide closed. He could understand mental exhaustion as well. People like Hermione, who were always in a frenzy and tearing through a jam-packed day, might consider it negligible, but some things were tiring in a different way.

Like visiting a family who had only recently lost their only son.

Like shaking his head and apologising to a voiceless old woman who pleaded incomprehensibly for his help.

Like spending hours in an all but empty room, paintbrush in hand, and attempting to flee from his thoughts by creating something even a little bit beautiful, a little bit complete, rather than mull over his incapacity to help those who could only seek help from him.

"Master should be sleeping in his bed."

Kreacher's grumble, accompanied by the distinct pop of toast, drew Harry's eyes open again. "What?"

With something not quite a glare, something more chiding, Kreacher tossed a glance over his shoulder before hobbling towards Harry with a pair of plates. "Proper sleeping is not to be had by sitting instead of lying," he said.

"I get enough sleep," Harry said.

"Master does not."

"Actually, I do –"

"Master does _not_." Kreacher clattered the plates onto the table for emphasis. The wafting scent of steam and eggs, warmth and bacon, swept towards Harry in an invitation juxtaposing Kreacher's disgruntlement. "Master is not sleeping properly, and he is not eating properly."

"You feed me every morning," Harry pointed out, gesturing to the plates.

Kreacher only frowned at him.

With a sigh, Harry straightened, hands flopping into his lap. "Your consideration is very kind. Thank you, Kreacher, but it's unnecessary."

"Unnecessary," Kreacher grumbled. "Unnecessary is not being pale as a ghost and just as absentminded."

Harry didn't think that most house elves were supposed to so scold their masters, but he didn't mind. Kreacher was, in many ways, the closest thing outside of Hermione that Harry had to a family. Despite his grunts and objections, it felt almost nice to be scolded.

Smiling slightly, Harry reached for the plates. "Thanks, Kreacher. For the breakfast." When Kreacher only continued to frown, Harry shook his head. "I'm going to go and see if Draco's awake. Would it be alright if I came and grabbed some tea in a second?"

"That won't be necessary."

With a start, Harry snapped his attention towards the doorway. He felt his eyebrows rise at the sight of a sleep-mussed Draco standing tall and thin, hands propped on either side of the doorframe, and peering into the room. He blinked a little heavily, sniffed, and took the final step down.

It was strange. Certainly unexpected. Draco hadn't been out of his room in days.

"You could just eat here," Draco continued quietly. "Unless you have a particular reason to have your breakfast in a bedroom. Do you?"

It took a moment for Harry to recall himself. He shook his head though more to clear himself of his stupor than in denial. "No. I don't."

Draco nodded slightly, stepping up behind one of the chairs pushed into the table. His hands curled in a semblance of claws onto the back rung and he stared at Harry for a long moment. "Am I permitted to sit down?" he finally asked.

Harry blinked. "Permitted?"

"Yes. Permitted."

"Draco, you…" Harry shook his head once more and briefly closed his eyes again. "Why would you think you have to ask something like that?"

Draco's lips thinned, his gaze dropping to the chair. "It's a courtesy."

"You don't have to be courteous."

"I know that," Draco said shortly, then pressed his lips firmly together as though reprimanding himself. He took a deep, slow breath in a fortifying manner that Harry was all too familiar with himself. Then he lifted his gaze it back up to meet Harry's. "It's the right thing to do when you're a guest in someone's house."

Harry stared at him. It was truly very strange. Draco had barely spoken to him over the past weeks and directly before that muteness had all but exploded into raving distress. Before _that_ , he'd openly hated Harry. Harry had suspected that sentiment remained, had pinned it to being one of the main reasons for his silence.

Maybe he was wrong.

"You know," he said slowly, "you've been here for a while now."

Draco visibly swallowed. "And I should leave?"

Harry frowned. He should. Realistically, it would be better for him to be as far away from Harry as possible given the circumstances, but… "No. Why would you think that?"

"It was the natural conclusion to make if –"

"Draco, shut up for a second." Harry raised a quieting hand that left Draco frowning himself, but he ignored his disgruntlement to continue. "I'm not saying you should leave because you've been here for a while."

"But?" Draco said.

"No buts. I just meant that you don't need to ask permission for something so basic. You've pretty much surpassed guest status."

Draco's fingers tightened further on the back of the chair. His frown was different to those that Harry recalled from their school days, which wasn't as disconcerting as it would have once been. There was much about Draco that was different to how he'd been at school, and Harry was sure there was a great deal more than he'd encountered, too.

"Overstaying to surpass guest status," Draco murmured. "That's not exactly a good thing."

"Only if anyone in the situation has an actual problem with it," Harry replied.

Draco flickered his gaze up towards Harry's, and something there – it was different. Different to the listlessness that Harry had seen all too much of late. Different to the anger or the desperation, the frustration, the hatred and the loss. There was humanity in Draco's gaze that Harry was surprised to realise he hadn't beheld recently. Maybe not ever.

It could have been the drugs. Or it could have been that Draco had simply needed the time to himself, to think things over and drag himself towards the exhausting task of living. For whatever reason, he seemed different. Maybe even a little better.

"Thank you," Draco said quietly, and those two, simple words were perhaps the sincerest that Harry had ever heard him say. For some reason, they felt like they referred to more than the conversation at hand.

Slowly lowering the plates to the table again, Harry gestured to the seat before Draco. "Help yourself. I was going to bring breakfast up, but if you're down here anyway then you're more than welcome to sit at a table for a change."

"It would be a change," Draco said, though it seemed more to himself than to Harry.

"A good change?" Harry asked.

Draco flickered his gaze towards him. His jaw worked for a moment before he nodded stiltedly. "I think I needed some kind of change."

That meant something too. Harry wasn't sure of exactly what, but he felt like it meant something. He smothered a smile as Draco pulled out the chair before him and almost tentatively settled himself down. Then Harry made a procedure of scooting the plates around the table, of offering cutlery and serving out the tea that Kreacher dutifully placed alongside him minutes later.

Something seemed to change from that moment. Not completely, but just a little bit in the right direction. Draco ate breakfast with Harry in the basement kitchen in almost complete silence, and after their meal he murmured something that could have been further thanks before retreating upstairs once more. He didn't come back down for lunch or dinner, not that day, but the following morning found him following Harry down to the kitchen almost as soon as Harry left the bedroom.

It was a change. Not a huge one, but it was a change nonetheless. Harry thought it might have been the best one they'd had yet.

* * *

On November the fifth, Harry painted.

He often found himself painting, and sometimes only for the satisfaction of it. There was something so calming about raising a brush, dabbing against a blank slate, and creating something new and even just a little beautiful. Some days, it was that simple creation that sufficed to motivate him to paint at all.

November the fifth was not one of those days. That day, painting was a necessity for distraction.

Harry scored the wall with dark smears of colour. He arced and curved, streaking lines in patterns that he didn't consciously make but felt purposeful and driven nonetheless. He wondered, in some detached part of his head that had the presence of mind to think, what the end result would be. He wondered if he really cared that much if it was going to be anything at all. It was enough that it competed for precedence with the memories that played over and over in his mind.

The sight of a dilapidated house.

A ringing shout.

The smack of a fist, the warbling wail of a young voice, and the feeling of a door caving beneath his shoulder as he charged inside, unable to help himself. What had followed wasn't good, wasn't nice, but it was necessary. It was better.

But Harry still painted because 'better' didn't necessarily equate to 'good'.

"What are you painting?"

For a moment the words hung in the air, an echo unheard. When Harry did hear them, when they unravelled themselves enough that he could make sense of them, it took another moment before he could lower his brush and turn slowly to glance across the room.

Draco sat against the opposite wall. Legs stretched out before him, slouched slightly and with eyes hooded in something that was different to the derisive regard of his teenage self, he stared at Harry. Or, more correctly, he stared at the wall over Harry's shoulder.

Harry stared at him in turn for a further long moment. That Draco was out of his room wasn't as uncommon as it had once been. He'd taken to climbing from bed almost every day that week, and yesterday he'd been in the kitchen for all three meals of the day. That was something. It felt like a big something – or at least it did to Harry.

But between meals was often sporadic. He occasionally ventured down the stairs, whiling away an hour or two in the library or even idling a little longer in the basement kitchen than mealtimes necessitated. The dining room was always avoided, which Harry was grateful for; he didn't have fond thoughts of that room himself of late.

Coming into Harry's space, however, was something a different entirely. Although, when Harry really thought about it, perhaps it wasn't so unexpected. Harry had missed breakfast that morning, had followed his visitor halfway across the city, and had likely missed lunch as well. Draco seemed to have a problem with that inconsistency for some reason.

Turning slowly back towards his wall, Harry contemplated the dark smears before him. The third wall of the master bedroom, the room that had once been Buckbeak's, had long been denied empty walls, but Harry was still working on them. What it was, however, was a different question entirely.

"I'm not sure, "he finally replied. "I don't often know what it is that I'm painting before I paint it."

"Isn't that kind of pointless?" Draco asked.

Harry shook his head. "No. It helps somehow, even if I doesn't have a specific intention."

"Helps what?"

Harry glanced back over his shoulder. Draco was very good at wearing a visage of blankness when he made the effort – or perhaps he was simply very bad at letting his emotions show through his listlessness. His face was as expressionless as ever, and he barely blinked as he stared at the wall.

No, as he stared at _Harry._ He was definitely staring at Harry now.

Harry felt his shoulders slump a little. He dropped his gaze to the brush in his hands, fiddling for a moment as he thought. He wasn't one to tell those few people around him of his visitors, of his struggles with those visitors, but if Draco had asked…

For whatever reason, it didn't feel all that bad to tell him.

"I had someone come and see me this morning," he finally said.

"A visitor?" Draco asked.

"Yes."

"That was why you up so early?"

Harry raised just his gaze towards Draco. "You heard me get up?"

Draco shrugged.

"You're a pretty light sleeper, aren't you?"

Draco shrugged again.

Harry sighed. If Draco wanted to be tight-lipped about something, Harry couldn't blame him. He wouldn't force him to speak, either; Draco was entitled to that much privacy. Given their more recent experiences and what Harry had all but dragged him through, he should be allowed that much, at least. Maybe more, even.

Which was why Harry spoke as he did. As much as anything, he supposed Draco deserved honesty and openness after his own had been all but torn from him. "The woman who came to visit me this morning was a victim of domestic abuse," he said.

Draco stared at him, and for a moment his expression wavered as though it were going to splitter. "Was it someone who screamed? Like that boy?"

Harry shook his head. "No. She didn't scream. She just practically begged me for help."

"So you went to help her?"

"Of course I did." Harry pursed his lips, staring hard and unblinkingly at his paint brush. His knuckles had turned white where they grasped its end.

He wouldn't tell Draco about what had followed. He wouldn't tell him of the house he'd visited and the two children the woman had been forced to leave behind. He wouldn't put into words the scene he'd walked in upon that had necessitated involving the police, or the fact that, for once, he'd been capable of magic. Harry didn't think he'd never been more relieved to cast a _Stupefy_.

He wouldn't say that. Not any of it. Draco had enough to deal with on his own. "She asked for help," Harry said slowly, "so I did what I could. It was just a bit of an experience, is all."

"An experience?" Draco echoed. "What does that mean?"

"A hard experience," Harry said.

"Which means?"

"Meaning I feel like I need to paint sometimes so that I can forget about it a little bit."

Harry still couldn't look towards him, but he could feel Draco staring at him from across the room. He fiddled with his brush, pressing the paint-laden head into his palm. His skin looked even paler against the darkness of that paint. He swirled in a circle for a moment, and it was only Draco's words that drew him back to the present.

"You're in a kind of fucked up situation."

Harry glanced at him sidelong. "I'm the one in a fucked up situation?"

Draco blinked slowly, almost lazily, and that expression was closer to those he'd once worn than any Harry had seen from him in weeks. So simple. So nostalgic. "Yes," he said. "It's messed up, and you have a shit way of coping with it.

Harry had a lot he could have said about that announcement. That Draco was hardly one to talk. That he thought his method of 'coping' was rather good, actually, especially given that he could do it by himself without having to drag anyone else into the mix. That independence certainly made things easier given that he had precious few people he could call upon, precious few he would allow himself to call.

What came out instead, however, was something else entirely. "It might be messed up, but there's a hell of a lot of people who have it a lot worse than me."

Though Harry turned his gaze up towards the dark beginnings of the painting on the wall, he could still feel Draco's eyes resting upon him. His words were barely audible. "Which is why you feel the need to help them?"

Harry hitched a shoulder. "One of the reasons, yes."

"What about helping yourself, Potter?"

A thin smile tugged upon Harry's lips. "I'm fine. It helps me to feel like I might be helping them, even just a little bit."

Draco shifted in his seat. Harry felt more than saw him do so. "And what about helping yourself?"

"I don't need help," Harry murmured. "They've got it worse."

"Didn't you say something a little while ago about problems being relative to the individual? I seem to recall you saying the same thing to me."

Harry glanced at Draco sidelong. Dark, hooded eyes regarded him without a hint of their usual desperation. Something had changed, whether because of their conversation or something else, and Harry thought it might have been a good thing. Good, even if Draco was currently using it against him.

"Are you turning my words back against me?" he asked.

Draco's eyebrow twitched slightly. "Are you suggesting that it doesn't apply to you?"

"I didn't say that."

"No, but you were clearly thinking it."

"And now you're trying to psychoanalyse me?"

Draco uttered a sound that was so nearly an amused snort that Harry almost flinched in surprise. He hadn't heard anything quite so derisive from him in days. "You're a fine one to talk after doing just the same to me over the past few weeks."

"True," Harry admitted, then fell silent and turned back to his wall.

He'd been having a shit morning. The visitor, the family he'd intruded upon, the police procedure that he'd managed to slip out of – it was all more than a little exhausting. Painting had been a necessary respite from it, but surprisingly enough, Harry found that it wasn't the painting that had helped.

Draco hadn't said anything particularly profound. Nothing truly surprising or resounding. But somehow, that he'd spoken at all and that Harry was, for once, not alone in Grimmauld Place – it changed things.

Harry returned to his painting, but it wasn't with quite the same weight upon his shoulders as had dragged upon them all morning. He continued to paint for hours on end, and quite without asking, Draco sat with him throughout.

* * *

Some days were good, better, and almost normal, but other days weren't. November the twentieth was a bad day, and not for Harry. His own bad days were different to Draco's.

November the twentieth was one of Draco's Bad Days.

Draco having a bad day wasn't unprecedented. Not even since he'd begun his medication were such days absented. If anything, that first week had been a series of Bad Days one right after the other. Since, there had been Good Days, better days, and days where Harry thought Draco might have even been, if not happy, then perhaps a little bit happier.

He would come out of his room. He would descend to the library, and he'd even begun to pick books to read. He would come out onto the front step, oftentimes when Harry was already sitting beside Padfoot, and the silence between them would even sometimes evolve into short snippets ofconversation. Harry supposed he should have expected that. Draco had never been a particularly quiet person back in their younger years.

Their shared mealtimes, almost all in the basement kitchen, had become pleasantly routine. When Harry painted, as much in an attempt to escape thoughts of visitors and his inability to help them as because he'd grown to enjoy almost the process, Draco had taken to keeping him company.

It was nice, that company. Harry couldn't remember the last time he'd had someone simply there. It was different from Kreacher's lurking presence, different from Hermione's occasional appearances when she dropped by in a frazzled frenzy. Different too to when James or Lily or Padfoot or Fred appeared to keep him company in their eternally hushed voices.

Draco was real. He was here, and not because Harry's magic had pooled its efforts to make it so. He was here because Harry had brought him, but at the end of the day, he stayed because he wanted to. Because he knew that, at least a little bit, he needed to. Harry was under no allusions that, if Draco truly wanted to leave, he could.

Quite without realising it, Draco became another part of Harry's very quiet, very simple life. Harry didn't think it was necessarily a good thing, not to keep him at Grimmauld Place indefinitely, but it happened whether he favoured it or not. Draco seemed to ease into place like a puzzle piece fitting, and an oftentimes objectionable puzzle piece, because regardless of his recent history of listlessness, desperation, and torrential grief, Draco Malfoy was still Draco Malfoy.

"It's horribly gloomy in here, even with your murals," he'd said in one of his slightly chirpier moods. "Doesn't the house elf know how to clean? Isn't that something that every house elf instinctively knows what to do?"

Harry ignored his grumble. Kreacher was more than capable of defending himself on the matter – which he did by adding an excessive amount of pepper to Draco's breakfast that morning. It didn't do all that much, as Draco only glared at him and used his wand to wipe it clean in a use of magic that he was slowly, gradually, practicing more of late.

"Are you telling me I'm sleeping in a dead man's bed?" he'd asked when Harry had told him of the previous owner of his room.

Harry glanced across the room from his alcove to where Draco lay, staring up at the ceiling with a touch of a frown on his brow. He didn't appear as horrified by the prospect as his words suggested he should have been, seemed almost bored by the notion, but it was somehow nice to hear regardless. A snotty git he might have been as a teenager, but Harry thought he would have preferred a little petulance over the listlessness and despair that had otherwise consumed him so much of late.

"It's not like he died in the bed," Harry said.

"But it was still my cousin's bed. And now he's dead."

"This is the best room in the house. I thought you'd prefer it to another one."

Draco raised his head slightly off his pillow turn frown instead towards Harry. "The best room?"

Harry shrugged. It wasn't an exaggeration. Sirius hadn't maintained his own room well enough for it to be considered prime sleeping quarters. "Why?"

Draco's frown deepened a little bit, but he only shook his head and sunk back onto his pillow. "There's a problem in that you should be the one using the best room. Idiot."

Harry didn't reply. Being termed an idiot wasn't nearly as stinging as it had once been.

"Why is it so draughty in here?" Draco often complained.

"Do the people that come to see you make a habit of doing so without warning?" he'd ask.

"This tea tastes stale. No, I didn't say I have a problem with it; I'm merely stating a fact."

"Do you always get up so early? It's not right. You should do something about your objection to sleeping in. It's inconvenient."

That last was one that Harry could only roll his eyes at. Draco didn't _have_ to get up when Harry did, but he'd made a habit of doing so. Harry had even asked if Draco would prefer him to sleep in another room.

But Draco only shrugged and grumbled something under his breath before replying. "I'm not kicking you out, Potter. You don't have to leave the room."

Whether it was for Harry's sake or something in Draco's preferences that Harry couldn't quite understand he wasn't sure, but he stayed. He remained in Draco's room each night, curled in the window's alcove draped in bundled blankets and pillows, because even if he did wake with a crick in his neck every morning, it felt somehow comfortable. Harry found didn't want to leave. There was something achingly reassuring about having someone who breathed so close by.

Draco complained. He complained quite a lot, Harry found, though usually without any real heat. He seemed almost unaware that he did so, as though it were his instinctive mode of communication. Harry didn't mind as much as he knew he would have once. The sound of it, of a voice louder than a whisper, was as reassuring as the tune of the record player next door. Draco's Good Days found him speaking more frequently at than with Harry, and Harry didn't have much objection to that at all.

His Bad Days, though – his Bad Days were horribly silent. That silence was made only more deafening in contrast to the vocality of his Good Days.

November the twentieth found Harry descending to the kitchen for breakfast. Draco didn't accompany him, but that wasn't wholly unexpected. Sometimes he did, rolling out of bed with more dedication to routine than his mutters and grumbles deemed him capable of, but other days it took a little longer. Some days it still didn't happen at all.

That day was one of those days.

Standing before the table, the spread of what was that morning a sweet breakfast swimming in more maple syrup than the pancakes warranted, Harry glanced towards the stairwell into the basement. No sound of padding footsteps met his expectations even as he waited, counting the minutes.

Harry sighed to himself. Turning towards where Kreacher was lovingly wiping down his counters from the floury chaos of baking, he picked up the pair of towering plates. "Thank you for breakfast, Kreacher," he said. "I'm going to head upstairs today, I think."

Kreacher paused in his wiping, squinting over his shoulder towards Harry. He grunted. "Master should not be playing to the Malfoy brat's whims."

"I'm not 'playing to his whims'," Harry said in spite of the little voice in his head that asked why he bothered attempting to convince Kreacher. The elf was the most stubborn person Harry had ever met. "He just needs consideration sometimes."

"Brats need to be kicked from their –"

"No one's kicking anyone."

"The Malfoy brat should be –"

"Kreacher," Harry said, turning towards the stairwell. "I know you don't like him, but just give him a break for once, okay? He's sick."

Kreacher's squinting became a scowl. "Sick, he is not. He is not coughing, nor fevered, but simply lazy."

"It's a different kind of sick," Harry said with a sigh, trudging up the stairs. Kreacher only grumbled in his wake.

Harry didn't really know why he felt the need to openly defend Draco. Draco didn't seem to care what Kreacher thought of him, or what anyone thought of him for that matter. It was more likely Harry's perspective that had changed and urged his defensiveness.

Harry didn't fully understand what it meant to have depression, and the thought of suicide still horrified him in a way that he couldn't quite overcome. But what Draco struggled against was real. It wasn't feigned or self-indulgent. He'd seen the heavy listlessness that was just a little different from Harry's own, and it was apparent that Draco couldn't control it.

Draco had his Good Days and he had his Bad Days. It was as simple as that. Such a fact didn't need to have an opinion attached to it. It was a little sad, but Harry knew he couldn't do anything about it. That would likely have to change, because it couldn't just be allowed to persist with the undetermined time limit that Harry's concern was growing more and more certain needed to be set upon Draco's stay, but for now he couldn't do anything.

Nothing besides bring him his breakfast, that was.

Climbing the stairs, Harry made his way to the top floor and backed through the door into Draco's room. It was just as he'd left it less than half an hour before –exactly like it, for that matter, to the very position that Draco lay slightly curled on his side. The only difference was that, instead of closed, his eyes were open and staring towards the window and alcove in which Harry usually sat.

Skirting around the bed, Harry paused alongside him. Draco's gaze didn't shift, but Harry hadn't really expect it to. "Hey," he said quietly.

No response met his words.

"Can I get you anything?"

Draco didn't move. He blinked slowly but nothing more.

"I don't know if you'll want it, but I've got breakfast for you. It's got so much syrup, cream, and berries on it that you might lose your teeth with one bite, but you kind of like sweet things, right?"

Another blink but otherwise Draco didn't respond. Harry didn't really expect him to, either.

Instead, he lowered his gaze down to the plates in his hands. He wasn't particularly hungry himself, which wasn't unusual. Appetite was a figment of the past that often eluded him. He could certainly relate to Draco's disinclination. But Draco did like sweets; it was something that Harry had noticed over the past weeks. He seemed to like them a lot, for that matter, even if he never openly admitted it. Harry wasn't so blind as to miss such a detail.

 _And maybe I'm not the only one,_ Harry thought. _Maybe Kreacher's not so uncaring as he pretends to be_. It wouldn't have surprised him had Kreacher known Draco was having a Bad Day and prepared breakfast to compensate. He did the same thing for Harry sometimes.

Placing Draco's plate down on his nightstand, Harry retreated a step. He turned towards his alcove, started towards it, then paused. Almost without intention, he glanced back towards where Draco lay.

He looked very alone where he lay. That loneliness somehow demanded to be erased.

What manifested the thought, the idea that fizzled into being, Harry didn't know. It had never even crossed his mind before, and he didn't know if Draco would accept any kind of intrusion of personal space. But at the sight of him lying as solitary and discarded as a doll in his bed, Harry couldn't help but think…

Rounding the bed once more, he dropped onto the opposite side and, with his own plate held aloft, he climbed onto the mattress. The queen-sized bed was big enough for two, so Harry could prop himself against the headboard without all but sitting on top of Draco. Crossing his legs, Harry placed his breakfast in his lap and began to pick at the mess of syrup, cream, and pancakes.

Draco didn't say anything. For a long time he didn't respond at all. Harry didn't mind, hadn't really expected anything of him, and just as Draco ignored him, he did so in return.

Or at least he did until what could have been an hour passed and Draco finally, slowly, rolled over slightly to glance at him over his shoulder. His eyes were heavy-lidded and dull but there was the barest frown on his brow. He stared at Harry as though he'd never seen him before and Harry met his gaze, staring right back.

"If you want me to move then that's okay," he said, rolling a blueberry absently between his fingers. "Whatever you'd like. Just let me know."

Draco didn't tell him to move. He didn't say anything, but he didn't give any unspoken indication that Harry should leave, either. So Harry remained, sitting alongside him an arm's length away and making a half-hearted effort to make a dent in his breakfast.

Draco didn't get much better that day. It wasn't one where they talked, or where he made the effort to come down to the kitchen. But after a time, he did heave himself up enough to lean against the headboard alongside Harry, though he didn't quite manage to eat anything.

That was something at least. To Harry, that was something.

* * *

December the first wasn't a Good Day for Harry. It wasn't a Bad Day either, but it certainly wasn't good. The reason lay in that, as soon as December arrived, the expected conversation would arise.

"You won't even try?" Hermione asked, somehow managing to slump a little even as only a head in a fireplace.

Harry shook his own. "No. I don't think I would be appreciated."

"You could just give them a call. I'm sure they'd –"

"Hermione," Harry said. "I think I would be the last person on earth the Weasleys would want to see for Christmas."

"I doubt that," Hermione said, but then she sighed and made the visible effort to shrug the thought from her mind. She looked tired, as usual, and the habitual pre-Christmas discussion she and Harry had been sharing for years didn't seem to do her any favours. It was always the same; the suggestion that Harry get in touch with them, that he try to mend the gradual division that had arisen years before, while Harry always denied the notion. The Weasleys had been through enough. He wouldn't impose his company upon them too.

"How are they?" Harry asked quietly, because he had to. Because he still cared and he couldn't see for himself.

Hermione gave a small little smile. "They're going well," she replied. "Really well, for most of them. Last I heard, Arthur's gearing up for a promotion in the new year, and Molly's still spending more time at Bill and Fleur's with the kids than she does at the Burrow. Ron told me on Monday that the joke shop's looking to open a new shop up north, and…"

Harry listened without interruption. He soaked up everything he could about the Weasleys, everything he could only speculate upon, or read about in the papers, or observe from afar when he visited Diagon Alley. It was all he could glean of the family that he still loved and who he'd unintentionally hurt so much. The family that he couldn't help but hurt each time he confronted one of them because whenever Harry saw a Weasleys, Fred would always appear.

Fred hated it as much as they did, Harry knew. He hated that he remained, that he lingered and couldn't pass on because his family still grieved for him. Harry had tried, and tried, and tried to tell them, painfully and cruelly as he knew it was. But when each attempt provoked tears or anger as it did from George, or protectiveness and defensiveness from Charlie and Bill, he couldn't maintain his efforts. He couldn't do that to them, couldn't keep asking, even if it was for Fred's sake.

"I'm sorry," Fred had said more times than Harry could count, appearing on the bottom step of the stairwell and pleading as much with his eyes as with his voice. "I'm sorry to do this to you, Harry, but can we go and see him?"

Harry always went. He always took Fred to see George, to see the joke shop he'd once owned. It was all he could do because he couldn't impose upon the Weasleys again. Not anymore. Not when faces sagged and eyes tightened whenever they saw him.

Instead Harry made do. He made do with what Hermione could give him.

"… and my parents asked us both around for tea next Friday, so that should be nice," she was saying with a complacent sigh. "I haven't seen them for a while, and they always love having Ron around for a visit."

Harry nodded. "He's a pretty top bloke," he said easily, swallowing the pain behind his words.

Hermione smiled tiredly. "He is." Then she scrubbed her eye with a fist, visibly smothering a yawn. "He eats Mum and Dad out of house and home every time he visits, but I think they actually quite like it."

Harry smiled himself. "You look tired."

"I am," Hermione replied.

"Only always, right?"

"Only always."

"How's everything going?"

Hermione scrubbed her face again as though wiping grit from her eyes. "With what part?"

Harry shrugged. "All of it."

Hermione huffed in what wasn't quite a laugh. "Work is intensely busy leading up to Christmas," she said. "I think it's the end-of-year fever. I'm staying back till ten most nights and tend to get in at about seven."

Wincing, Harry murmured commiseration of what he couldn't really relate to. "You should just sleep at the office."

"I have considered it, funnily enough. Me and just about everyone else in the office. But I need to go home most nights because owls with VLF requests still come practically daily."

Harry winced again. "That bad, huh?"

Hermione shook her head. "It's not bad, per se. Everything more just… stagnating. Which isn't a good thing for an activist group, so the members are freaking out."

"And, naturally, they turn to you?"

"Naturally. They need the help."

"You're run off your feet, though. Couldn't they hassle someone else? Surely there's someone that could stand for them and say something, like… like an understudy, or –"

"Or a poster child?" Hermione smiled crookedly. "Yes, we've thought of that. But finding someone to fill Narcissa's shoes is no mean feat. We're trying, but we're not quite succeeding."

Harry fell quiet. He had nothing more to say to that, and Hermione seemed like-minded. Or, more likely, she was simply too tired to bother. She was knuckling her eyes in the greenish glow of flames more than she was blinking them open.

"You should go to bed," Harry said. "Sorry to keep you awake."

"Why are you apologising?" Hermione said through another yawn. "I'm the one who called you. I'm sorry that I haven't managed to drop by this week."

"It shouldn't always be on your end to visit me."

"Maybe not, but I don't mind." Hermione said tipped her head in a way that suggested she shrugged. She knew that Harry had enough trouble stepping outside these days when not in pursuit of assistance for a visitor. Regardless of the years that had passed, papers still all but leapt upon him whenever he showed his face. It was as though his absence had only made their fixation grow stronger, the responses louder. Navigating the streets of London was an art that Harry minimised his practice of whenever he could.

"Go to sleep, Hermione," he said. "I'll owl you tomorrow."

"It's alright," she said. "I'd be content with knowing that you might consider my suggestion about Christmas just a little bit."

Harry nodded, though he knew it was in feigned compliance. He knew Hermione knew it was feigned too, but she let the lie slide. "Get some rest," he said. "You look like you need it."

"Are you criticising me?" Hermione said with exaggerated affront.

"Only telling you the truth."

"Good. We need more truth-tellers around here."

She dropped out after that. The fireplace cracked and spat green flames, flickering to a dying red, and Harry was left to stare at Hermione's absence. He was sitting on the floor, on his knees in the basement kitchen, but it wasn't necessarily uncomfortable. Or, more correctly, Harry wasn't uncomfortable enough to bother moving. Kreacher chided him at times that he was 'damaging his knees', as though he were an elderly man with pained joints, but Harry rarely abided by his scolding suggestions.

The fire was warm. It always felt warm to him regardless of summer heat, and even more so when Harry felt more chilled than usual. He'd had a visitor that morning, an old woman who simply wished to see her newborn great-grandchild before she passed, and it always left him drained and sleep colder than before from the magical touch of Death. No amount of hand-rubbing or bundling in blankets seemed able to diffuse it.

It hadn't been a necessarily bad day, though. Not until Hermione had mentioned the Weasleys.

Sighing, Harry leant forwards until his head rested upon the ground, hands rising to curl around the back of his neck. His glasses pressed into his nose a little but he didn't mind. If Kreacher saw him, he would likely exclaim in horror that he was 'all but sleeping on the floor', but Kreacher had vanished at Hermione's call. Harry was alone, and just for a moment he could slump beneath the weight of loss that so often gripped him when thinking of the Weasleys. He wondered at what would happen if he did take Hermione up on her suggestion. He wondered –

"You'll catch your death if you sleep on those tiles."

Blinking, Harry pried his eyes open peered at the slightly grimy floor directly before him. Slowly, he pushed himself upright, turning towards where Draco had planted himself in the doorway to the stairwell.

"I doubt that," Harry said. "I don't really get cold."

"Bullshit," Draco replied. "Everyone gets cold."

"Not me."

"Why not you?"

"Dunno. Something to do with Death magic, I think."

"Death magic…" Draco hummed, frowning a little, though it seemed more contemplative than objectionable. Strange, how Harry could almost pick it these days. And just as strange that Draco seemed to accept the oddity that was 'Death magic', especially when Harry hardly knew what it was himself.

With a huff, Draco lowered himself down onto the bottom step. He dropped his elbows onto his knees and regarded Harry intently. "You were talking to Granger?" he asked. "I caught the tail end of it."

Harry nodded. "Just touching base."

"For you or for her?"

"For both of us."

It wasn't expressly true, as Harry knew Hermione likely unconsciously considered herself his carer, but it was easier to think of it that way. Besides, Harry did want to be sure she was alright. She was working far too much lately to be caring for him too.

Draco nodded slowly. "And it was a bad conversation, I take it?"

"No," Harry replied.

"You're lying."

"I'm not, actually."

"Then why were you curled in the foetal position on the floor?"

Harry smiled just a little. It was a struggle. "Tired, I guess?"

"Then go to bed," Draco said with another huff. "Merlin, Potter, does someone actually have to tell you to sleep when you're tired?"

It was almost funny, really, that Draco could be so demanding that Harry take care of himself. Hypocritical too, though Harry supposed he had a bit of that himself. They were two peas in a pod in that regard. Clearly Draco's own hypocrisy reared its head when he wasn't feeling incapable of facing the day.

Smiling just a little more genuinely, Harry dropped his gaze down his knees. It seemed a monumental effort to rise, but with Draco watching him like a hawk, he felt somehow obliged. As though he was performing, showing him how it was done.

With a heave, Harry rose to his feet. He felt heavy, and it had nothing to do with physical tiredness. Turning towards Draco, he nodded in acceptance of Draco's instruction. "Alright. Whatever. I'll go to bed. But you should, too."

"I have every intention of doing so," Draco replied, rising himself as Harry crossed the room towards him. He towered over him where he stood on the bottom step, as thin as a cricket and just as gangly.

Harry frowned slightly, tipping his head. "Then why haven't you?"

"Why haven't I what?"

"Gone to bed. You don't have to wait up or anything." The thought was baffling at best.

Draco's eyebrow twitched. Then he turned slowly and deliberately, thumping started up the stairs in real, audible steps. "I'm a light sleeper, remember?" he said over his shoulder.

"So?"

"So, if you come into my room after I've already turned in, I'll definitely wake up. What's the point in even trying?"

Harry didn't reply. It was strange that Draco would make the assumption that Harry would sleep in his room. Strange that Harry felt comfortable in accepting that assumption. Stranger still that when they finally entered the room that had become so familiar to Harry of late, Draco caught his shoulder just for a second as he headed towards the alcove.

"Bloody hell, just sleep in the bed," he said with a sigh and exaggerated roll of his eyes.

Harry raised his own eyebrow. "With you?"

"The bed's big enough for two people, Potter. Unless you have a problem with that."

"I don't, but…"

"Just don't touch me, alright? Otherwise I'll kick you out."

Harry was rendered momentarily stupefied and could only watch as Draco made his way to the bed, clambering beneath the blankets and flopping onto his pillow. He was still staring when Draco raised his head slightly and frowned towards him. "Any time tonight, Potter."

So Harry crossed the room. He climbed into the bed. He turned his back to Draco just as Draco did to him, and for the first time in weeks slept in a proper bed. It was a remarkable discovery, but Harry realised with the radiating warmth of Draco at his back that such simple proximity… It helped. After that night and his conversation with Hermione that had triggered just a little bit of Bad, it really helped.

* * *

A/N: Thank you to the lovely readers who has spared a second or two - or considerably more - to leave a review. Your kind words and encouragement mean the world to me. Thank you in particular to Arodoet for your continued and often extensive words. I hope that my updates and replies do your kindness justice!


	12. Chapter 12 - A Sideways Leap

**Chapter 12: A Sideways Leap**

"Who is it?"

With a start, Harry dragged his gaze away from the girl standing across the table from him. She wasn't a regular visitor, but he'd seen her twice before. Only once he'd tried to help her, as only once had she clung to his side for long enough that he could step out the door, but he remembered. He remembered them all.

Harry turned towards where Draco sat across from him, his gaze downcast and focused upon smearing spread on his halved scone. Harry frowned. "You'll give yourself a cavity if you use that much jam."

Draco didn't even glance towards him. He made a point of cleaning his knife on the edge of his scone before placing it deliberately upon the edge of his plate. Only when he'd taken a bite that was more jam than actual scone did he return Harry's attention.

"There's a charm for that," he said. "A preventative that stops sugar-rot."

"Lucky you," Harry said, rolling his eyes. "You get to abuse your diet and can remedy it with a spell."

"I can do it for you if you ask nicely enough."

Harry frowned. "No thanks. I don't even really like jam."

Draco frowned in return. "That's a cardinal sin, Harry."

Harry smiled a little. Just for a moment, he almost forgot that the girl stood in the room. Just for a moment he could smother the memories of how she'd died, of the family of the young suicide victim, and could pretend he wasn't haunted by his inability to help her.

Just for a moment, it was nice to linger in the knowledge that, just two days before, Draco had begun to call him Harry.

There was no particular trigger for the occasion. Nothing exceptional, and no announcement. It was simply that, two days ago, Draco had awoken and begun to call him by his name.

Harry hadn't realised how much he needed to hear it. He hadn't thought anything of Draco calling him 'Potter', but that he'd altered his term of address felt like something. It felt… nice. Harry didn't know if they were friends, if they even could be friends with Draco's hatred and resentment surely still lingering within him, but it felt nice nonetheless.

Just as other things had been nice. Like sharing a bed with someone as Harry had never done before, the warmth of body heat far greater than his own could produce anymore like a comfortable furnace alongside him. Like Draco's oftentimes silent companionship, or his increasingly arising conversations that were mostly Draco speaking and Harry listening.

Like the fact that Harry could see, _had_ seen, that Draco was changing. That, just a little bit and just slowly, he was getting better. He had his Bad Days, and they were frequent enough not to be forgotten or not to notice the distinction between those and the Good ones, but Harry thought they might have even been growing a little less frequent than they had been.

Draco wasn't better. Not completely, and not even mostly. Harry knew that something still had to be done. He could see it, just as he could see that a simple box of pills actually seemed to make a difference. Draco needed something that Harry couldn't give him, and whether that was a Mind-Healer, a Muggle psychologist, or something else, he wasn't sure. He didn't even know what to suggest because Draco was taking small steps and Harry didn't want to rock the boat.

But they were better. They really were. And for purely selfish reasons, Harry was satisfied. This one time, this one person, he'd managed to help. This one person he'd been able to support past that moment of departure that his visitors faded into, and it was special. Harry hadn't done anything like that for a long time.

That he was actually enjoying Draco's company was only a bonus on top of that. How incredibly odd it was to think that so much of their teenage years Harry had wanted to knock his lights out. Draco still bore a semblance to his younger self, but there was enough change, for better or worse, that Harry couldn't think him a git anymore. Not entirely.

That company was not, however, enough to incite him to drown in jam and cream as Draco appeared inclined to most mornings. Kreacher, much to Harry's only recent discovery, seemed silently inclined to feed Draco's obsession. Maybe he thought that whatever ailed Draco could be driven off with sugar? He was certainly making the effort to try and ensure as much.

Harry winced in sympathy for Draco's teeth as he watched him take another bite, but a gesture in the vague direction of Harry's visitor distracted him. "Who is it, then?"

Harry spared another glance for the girl. Hollow eyed, her lips downturned mournfully, she was exactly the same as the last time he'd seen her. Still young. Still silently pleading. The reminder of her was enough that Harry's momentary jam-distraction was vanquished.

"She's someone I've seen before," he said. "That first time… A little while ago, when I started drawing the hippogriff in the master bedroom?"

Draco paused mid-bite. He nodded slowly. "I remember. The suicidal girl."

"Yeah. Her." Harry bit his lip briefly. He knew Hermione would caution him not to speak of suicide around Draco, but Draco didn't turn aside from it, so he couldn't himself. It would be overlooking a pivotal part of their circumstances, of how they'd gotten where they were, and though Harry supposed many in a similar situation to Draco might wish for that part of their experience to be overlooked, Draco didn't seem to. Not as far as Harry could tell.

"What does she want, exactly?" Draco said, staring in the direction the girl stood. He was surprisingly accurate with his directionality. Harry wasn't quite sure how he did it, but even without seeing her, he managed to look almost exactly into her face.

"She wants me to give a note to her parents," Harry said.

"And you haven't?"

"I've tried. They chased me out of the house when I knocked on their door."

Draco frowned, his eyes darkening. "That's just rude."

Harry shrugged, picking at his eggs without tasting them. "It's realistic."

"No. It's rude."

"Most people don't want to be approached by someone who supposedly carries a letter from their dead daughter, Draco."

"Most people are idiots, then," Draco replied.

Harry smiled a little once more, though more ruefully than with real amusement. That was the thing. That was the one thing that Harry had grown so heartily glad of with Draco's company. Hermione sometimes understood – or tried to understand – that Harry saw the dead. She tried to believe it, and at times Harry believed she truly did.

But other times, it was apparent that Hermione deemed something was 'wrong' with the whole idea of it. That she didn't – or perhaps couldn't – believe Harry, and that though she placated him with nods and words of commiseration, she would shoot wary glances towards Lily's chair in the library, or across the table to where James sat, as though trying to convince herself that there even could be someone there.

But Draco was different. Whether it was the mention of Narcissa or simply that he'd been living with Harry for longer, had seen the arrivals of the visitors and even accompanied Harry on a few of his cross-city hikes, he seemed to genuinely believe him. Harry hadn't realised how much he needed that belief until it was given to him.

"What are you going to do about it, then?" Draco asked, shouldering his way into Harry's thoughts with another deliberate bite of his sickly-sweet breakfast.

Another glance towards the girl, still staring at him owlishly, and Harry sighed. He dropped his chin into his hand. "I suppose I should give it another go. Trying to visit them, I mean."

"Will they chase you out again?" Draco asked, placing the final bite of his scone into his mouth before proceeding to meticulously dust off his fingers. He was a bit obsessive about tidiness, Harry had noticed – or at least he was when he could summon the energy to care about such things.

"Most likely," Harry said, drumming his fingers on his chin. "But I've got to at least try."

"She'll stay until you've managed it?"

"Most likely. That or, if I don't, she'll begin to fade away unfulfilled over time."

Draco frowned once more, his eyebrows dropping low. "She doesn't scream, does she?"

"No," Harry said, shaking his head. "You'd know if she was screaming, even without hearing her." Which he would. Draco had known with the boy weeks before. It was hard to miss when Harry knew that he himself became so caught up in the throughs of distress.

"But she's annoying you?"

It was Harry's turn to frown. "She's not annoying me," he said. "She just needs help, and I'm the only one that can give it to her."

Draco pressed his lips together in a way that Harry had grown to understand meant he was intently considering something. He turned slowly back towards the girl, staring just over her shoulder as the only indicator that he couldn't really see her at all.

"Alright, then," he said. With a final dust of his hands, he rose to his feet. "Why don't we get it over with? I'll deal with this."

Harry stared up at him incredulously. He felt his mouth flop open. "Excuse me?"

"You're clearly approaching this girl's family in the wrong way, Harry," Draco said, sniffing. The gesture was so reminiscent of his teenage self that Harry almost rolled his eyes again. "So let me try."

Shaking his head, Harry shot another glance towards the girl. Draco had indeed accompanied him upon occasion, but he'd remained silent and at a distance. Harry didn't know why he bothered at all; it seemed a little redundant to him, or at least it surely was from Draco's perspective. For Harry, he silently appreciated the company in his disheartened trek home. He appreciated Draco's Apparition abilities almost as much.

"Are you sure you want to do that?" Harry asked slowly. "You actually want to come?"

Draco paused in step as he started towards the stairwell, glancing over his shoulder. "Of course."

"Even if it might hit a little close to home?"

"A little –?" Draco's eyebrows lowered once more. "Isn't that all the more reason to do so? What's the point of having nearly done it myself without learning from it?"

Harry could only stare after him as Draco turned and disappeared up the stairs. He was… a little incredible. That he could even contemplate such a thing – Harry knew that Hermione would be dumbfounded, and he found himself of a similar mind. Not even about the subject itself, either, though that was certainly cause for stupefaction. Draco's words…

 _What's the point of having done it myself?_

Harry shook his head as he rose from his chair. He wasn't quite sure from where the sudden motivation had arisen and suspected that it was likely something that would be 'there' one day and 'gone' the next, but it was nice. That Draco could even find such motivation… it was kind of nice.

"We'll go, then," Harry said to the girl waiting silently beside him. "I'll try again – or _we_ will."

The girl didn't quite smile, but the tightness around her eyes might have eased just a little.

The trip through London this time was far shorter than it had been that first morning. Draco released Harry's hand as they stepped out of the squeezing embrace of Apparition, and he instinctively glanced around himself as though to ensure that they'd avoided Muggle notice. It would have been unlikely had they been caught given the narrowness of the alley they'd appeared in and the relative darkness of the gloomy sky, but Harry found himself doing the same nonetheless.

"Is she still here?" Draco asked.

Harry glanced over his shoulder and, as expected, caught sight of the girl barely two steps behind him. They always followed, Harry had realised. Somehow, through magic or somehow clinging to him, when Draco Apparated them, his visitors always kept pace.

"Yeah," he said. "She's here."

Draco nodded. Then he folded his arms across his chest and turned expectedly towards Harry. "Where to, then?"

 _This might not be such a good idea_ , Harry thought, pausing for a moment to stare at Draco. He didn't know for sure, had so rarely seen such an expression on Draco's usually expressionless face, but he suspected it breathed bull-headed determination as Draco's usual listless apathy so ardently spat in the face of. Harry wasn't sure if such an approach would be appropriate for the girl's family, but he supposed he had to try. He had to – right?

Starting from the confines of the alleyway, Harry poked his head into the relative busyness of the street beyond. He glanced both ways, then over his shoulder and tipped his head towards Draco. Draco took the unspoken message and fell into step at his right, just as the girl did upon his left.

The inner-city streets were plagued by traffic at such an early hour. Harry knew from his previous visit that, at barely seven o'clock, his visitor's family were only just preparing to head for work. Weaving through pedestrians and across crossings beneath the watchful yet inattentive eyes of commuters, he led Draco and the girl with single-minded intent.

Head tucked. Hood raised. Eyes lowered. It was a method Harry had learnt to employ out of necessity. He hadn't been caught out by passing witches and wizards in a long time, and it was less likely to happen in the streets of Muggle London, but habits were easily formed and hard to break.

Surprisingly enough, Draco didn't say anything at his side. He oftentimes became lost in thoughtful silence, but this kind of thoughtfulness seemed different to his usual. He regarded their surroundings as they passed each street, drawing from the thickness of the main roads and into narrowed but less populated residential regions in minutes. It was only when Harry slowed to a stop that he seemed to recapture his own attention.

"This is it?" Draco asked, drawing his gaze up to the terrace leaning over them.

Harry nodded. This was it. He would likely always remember the location of the quaint little house, its iron wrought gate and the modest garden with its perfectly trimmed hedges. The short steps leading up to the doorway were like a tongue spilling from the bright red door at their head.

"What did you do last time?"

Blinking, shaking himself from his staring, Harry eyed Draco sidelong. "What?"

Draco gestured in a vague motion to the terrace. "So I know what to avoid doing this time."

Harry glanced towards the girl at his other side, then back to Draco. He chewed his lip in a moment of wary silence. Was he really letting this happen? It seemed somehow wrong to have someone else deal with the request for his aid. But the memory of Harry's previous visit, of the girl's mother and her shouts, the distress that emanated from her and had driven Harry from the house as much as her words, was fresh enough.

He nodded. "I basically just asked her."

"Asked her?" Draco repeated.

"Or told her. I said I had a message from her daughter." He hitched a shoulder in a shrug, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his oversized jacket. He fingered the written note he'd kept for weeks that was folded within. "I tried to read out the words her daughter had left for me, and –"

Before he could help himself, Harry was turning towards the girl at his side. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm really sorry I didn't manage it."

"Harry," Draco said from his side, but Harry hardly heard him.

"Sorry that you've had to stick around. It shouldn't have been like that, and I didn't mean to hurt your mum and dad."

The girl blinked up at him solemnly. There was still no resentment, still no accusation in her mournful gaze. Draco nudged his shoulder, murmured something else, but Harry hardly heard that, either. "Is there anything you would suggest? You can just mime it to me if you'd like."

"Harry –"

"I don't want to upset them again if I can help it. You shouldn't have to see that –"

"Harry, you –"

"- not when it's such a simple thing."

"It's not a simple thing."

Draco's more forceful nudge as much as his words snagged Harry's attention. He turned slowly, almost unable to drag his gaze from the girl, but Draco's expression caught him.

He wasn't usually expressive. Harry thought that perhaps he wasn't able to be so much anymore. But despite that usual blankness, the solemn cast to his features that seemed suddenly so similar to that of the girl's was astounding. It was almost as though he felt what she did.

"I think you're misunderstanding," he said quietly.

Harry blinked. "What? What do you -?"

"Hearing from someone who's passed, even just a few words… That means a lot, Harry."

For a moment, Harry was unsure what Draco referred to. Then it dawned upon him. _Stupid,_ he silently cursed himself. _I'm so stupid. Of course he's thinking of his mother._ That thought, that Harry hadn't even considered it, tightened his chest light a constricting vice. He'd assumed that Draco's main drive to help him had something to do with the similarity he had for the girl, but now he wasn't so sure. Maybe it had less to do with Draco's own experiences and more correctly his loss.

Harry had lost people, but not like that. Maybe that was where he'd gone wrong in the first place. If he couldn't quite relate, how could he properly empathise with the girl's family?

Nodding slowly, Harry turned back towards the girl where she still watched him fixedly. "Draco's going to help," he said, accepting that help properly for the first time. "So long as that's okay with you."

The girl blinked her wide, watery eyes. With what seemed an effort, she shifted her gaze towards Draco. Harry had noticed that apparent struggle that surfaced at times; much as those around him – Draco, Hermione, Kreacher – didn't seem capable of seeing his visitors, those visitors seemed to have a bit of difficulty themselves. With the exception of James and Lily, it was almost as though they had as little perception for those who were alive as was afforded to them in return.

Finally, slowly, she nodded.

"That's okay?" Harry asked quietly.

Another nod.

"Is there anything else you'd like us to try and do?"

Quirking her lips to the side, the girl frowned for a moment before reaching for Harry's wrist. Her cold fingers didn't really clasp, but Harry drew his hand and the note it held from his pocket at the unspoken request nonetheless.

He knew what it said. Of course he did, because he'd copied it down from the insubstantial phantom of a note the girl had shown to him weeks before. It didn't make much sense to him; it was riddled with apologies and heartbroken love, with more references to past occasions that would likely only make sense to her parents. It still hurt a little, though. It hurt to know that the girl had poured her heart out onto a single, simple page as her only means of saying goodbye.

Harry swallowed thickly, lowering his gaze down to his slanted scrawl. "Anything else you'd like to add?" he murmured. The girl only tapped it with a faded finger.

"This is it, then?" Draco asked, and Harry dragged his gaze towards him. He nodded, and that was all he had time for before Draco plucked it from his fingers.

Harry didn't get a chance to protest, to demand that it was _private_ and Draco _shouldn't read it_ , but Draco didn't even attempt to. He folded the note neatly and, with that same decisiveness that had clung to him since he'd realised the girl had appeared, he strode towards the red door.

"Draco," Harry began, hastening after him.

"Just let me try," Draco said, taking the stairs two at a time and rapping on the door before Harry had a chance to stop him. Not that he would have. He didn't think he could. That he _should._

A pause met Draco's knock. A long pause in which Harry shifted uncomfortably in place, glancing over his shoulder towards the waiting girl. He felt like he should do something, should say something. That he should be doing more than simply standing just ahead of the girl who peered at the red door as though it were the gates into heaven. Harry supposed it almost was for her. Draco, however, stood unmoving and more confident than Harry had seen him in months.

A scuffle, the muffled thump of footsteps, sounded from behind the door and preceded its abrupt opening. The woman who appeared from behind, as short and dark as the girl alongside Harry, frowned in visible bafflement as she peered up at Draco.

"Can I help you?" she asked. And then she saw Harry.

Her face twisted. It fell into a pained crumple, flushed briefly, and then it hardened as she struggled to grasp hold of herself. Her mouth opened, and Harry could almost hear the shouted words she would speak tripping off her tongue.

Only for Draco to speak over her. "Don't," he said curtly, and even that simple word snatched the woman's attention towards him. "Don't rant. Don't rave and accuse someone of trying to help you. It's pointless, and it does your daughter a disservice."

The woman's eyes widened, flaring while her pupils visibly shrank. Her jaw worked once more and her stuttered words were choked and pained. "How… how dare you think that you… that you could presume –"

Draco wasn't cowed. He held out the note in Harry's handwriting, all but thrusting it in her face. "I don't know what she wanted to tell you," he said, "but it must have been important if she went so far to ensure you go it."

"You –"

"Read it if you will. Don't if your truly think that she wouldn't have left something behind, even after what she felt compelled to do what she did."

The woman's mouth flopped open. She stared up at Draco, her breath coming in stutters, and Harry felt something in his constricting chest seize further. He peered towards the girl as she stepped further towards the door, and cringed further at the sight of tears dribbling down her cheeks, at the silent, _"I'm sorry,"_ she mouthed like a chanted mantra.

The girl's mother trembled with a whole-body quiver. Her fingers, curled as they were around the doorframe, whitened as they clenched even further. "You have no right to do this," she whispered, her wide stare including Harry as well. "Neither of you do. Not after everything –"

"Probably not," Draco said, overriding her with all of the presumptuousness that Harry had once hated him for. "But I know that if someone I loved left before I could properly say goodbye, I'd grab onto anything that was offered to me with both hands, regardless of how it came to me."

When the woman's own tears began to fall, her resemblance to her daughter was made only starker. She squeezed her eyes closed for a moment, shaking her head fiercely before glaring up at Draco. "You bastard," she whispered.

Harry was almost surprised when she reached for the note. She all but snatched it from Draco's fingers, shaking her head all the while. Then, without even glancing at it, she swung the door closed with a slam so fierce that, had Draco been standing an inch or two closer, he would have likely lost his nose.

Harry stared at the peephole for a moment before slowly turning towards Draco. Draco himself turned just as slowly towards Harry. He met his gaze and held it. "It's important."

"What is?" Harry said, his voice barely a croaking whisper. He couldn't manage anything louder.

Draco pressed his lips together, but the effort didn't quite hide their minute trembling. "Family," he said, a little hoarse himself. "Even when they're gone, they're important."

His words struck Harry just a little too hard. He squeezed his own eyes closed, thoughts of Lily and James welling forth. He could understand that. He'd never known them in life, but Harry could understand and appreciate the importance of them as he never had in life. He might not understand the kind of loss that Draco had endured, that the girl standing at his side struggled through, but he knew a different kind of loss.

Turning towards the girl, he swallowed thickly. "Is that enough?" he asked. "What else… what else can we do?"

The girl swiped at the tears dribbling down her cheeks with shaking hands. She shook her head, her bedraggled hair flicking her chin, and the smile she attempted was worse than if she'd not tried at all. _No_ , Harry heard, even though she didn't open her mouth. _No, that's all_.

And then she faded. Just as countless other visitors had faded, she too sunk into gossamer translucency and then nothingness. Harry stared at the spot she'd been but not quite stood, unable for a long moment to look away.

"Well?"

Harry blinked. With a struggle, he tore his gaze from the emptiness and turned towards Draco. Another struggling swallow did little more good than it ever did. "She's gone," he managed.

Draco nodded slightly, almost knowingly. "I suppose whatever was on that note was enough for her."

Harry nodded himself. He didn't really understand, couldn't understand, because the note had only been a note, even riddled with words that he knew he didn't quite grasp the meaning of. "I guess so."

"So what now?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean," Draco tipped his head in a gesture towards the door beside them, "do you have to do anything more?"

Harry glanced back towards the door, back to the empty peephole, and shook his head. "No. No, she's gone. That's it." Then he turned, hunched his shoulders, stuffed his hands back into his pockets, and strode towards the footpath once more.

Draco fell into step alongside him without comment. The warmth of his presence, a warmth that seemed to be making a concerted effort to rid Harry of the cold that dribbled through him, was reassuring in a way that Harry had only appreciated recently. Just that company, that simple companionship in the aftermath of his visitor's disappearance, meant more to him than he could say. More than he thought he voice.

 _I didn't know how much I needed a real person until he came along_ , Harry abruptly realised, staring at his shoes as he strode down the street. _Mum, Dad, Padfoot… I need them too, but it's not the same._

"It's different," Draco said.

For a moment, Harry started. Draco's words echoed his thoughts so perfectly he could have been using Legilimency. As he slowed in place, however, Draco slowing alongside him and shoving his own hands into his jacket pockets, he saw the thoughtful contemplation wrinkling his brow.

"What is?" Harry asked.

"Her," Draco said. "She was different to the other one's I've accompanied you with."

Harry shrugged. He took a step closer to Draco to edge out of the foot traffic, and it was enough to be all but buffeted by that radiant warmth that Draco emanated like a fragrant smell. His own chill, a coldness that had nothing to do with the swirling winter around them, soothed just a little more for it.

"They're all a little different," Harry said. "They all have their own stories –"

"I meant for you," Draco interrupted him, his breath pluming in a thin cloud and brushing Harry's cheeks. He nodded, though it seemed more to himself than to Harry. "She was different for you."

Harry shrugged again. "Maybe. I don't know."

"It hurt to help her. That was why you were painting before, that first time she came to see you."

"I suppose," Harry said, though he could acknowledge the validity of Draco's assumption. It _had_ hurt. "But they all hurt a little, and they all feel better when they're helped."

Draco stared at him, meeting his eyes with a stare that wasn't quite hard but captured Harry's attention nonetheless. It was a strange feeling, to be so studied so closely. There was less than a step between them, and Harry… He didn't really know what to do about that. He didn't know what to think. Being close to someone felt good. Even with the distraction of his thoughts, in the aftermath of his visitor's disappearance that always left him feeling a little hollow, a little tired, and just a little colder, he found himself drawn in an unprecedented direction.

It was nice. It was almost too nice, that Draco was with him. Harry didn't even know if it was expressly Draco or simply someone at all, but he found himself unconsciously clinging to that feeling, to that presence. He felt a burning sensation rise in his eyes and had to blink rapidly to suppress it.

 _But I can't have this_ , he thought, because he knew what would happen if anyone got too close. He knew why Draco had to leave, just as he'd been reminding himself for weeks, for months. He couldn't have him stay, couldn't do that to him, because he knew the inevitability of what would result.

Harry had seen the effects of his company in Kreacher and that was bad enough. He couldn't do that to anyone else. Hermione knew of his visitors, but _this_? This secret that he couldn't tell even her? It was a very good thing that she only visited herself once a week. If it was anything more than that…

 _I can't let him stay,_ Harry thought, even as tightness tugged in his chest. _It's not good for him, and not only because he needs more than I can give him. He has to leave, even if he's not better, because…_

"I think I can see why you do it," Draco said so quietly his voice was almost lost between the beeping, the chatter, the incessant noise that echoed throughout the city. Harry was drawn from his thoughts, peering up through his fringe, and Draco cocked his head in acknowledgement. "I think I get it."

"Get what?" Harry asked, struggling to smother the preparatory ache of loss that welled within him.

"Your purpose," Draco said just as simply. "It helps if you live to help others, I think. And that's your problem, Harry."

Harry could only stare at him. Problem? It was a problem to help others? Harry didn't think so. It was all that was keeping him afloat. "What do you mean?" he asked.

Draco pursed his lips. Then he shook his head, turned in place, and began to walk in a slow wander down the street once more. Harry followed just as slowly after him. "You tell me to live for myself, even if you don't do the same," Draco said over his shoulder. "And yet you're surviving now, if not quite living."

Tipping his head back, Draco breathed a puff of misty whiteness into the air. For a moment, Harry was caught by the simple sight of it. He couldn't do that. Whatever coldness filled him and from wherever it came, it seemed to have filtered into his breath as well.

Draco's sigh was real. It was a visible breath of air, and it puffed once more as he spoke. "I'll just copy you for a time, until I get better at it myself. This living thing, as you see it. Unless you have a problem with that, that is."

That tightness squeezed Harry's chest so tightly he almost couldn't breathe. Did he have a problem with it? Of course not. Not at all. Harry didn't _want_ there to be a problem, would have been content or Draco to stay, and practice, and become, but –

But Draco still needed help. Harry knew that. He still needed to be – if not fixed, then at least assisted on his way towards healing in a manner that Harry knew he couldn't provide. More than that, he couldn't stay because it would hurt him. Because it was bad. Because… because…

Draco couldn't stay with Harry, even if Harry longed for the company. He couldn't help with Harry's visitors, even if he truly was a help, and he couldn't assume the purpose, the driving motivator, that Harry did, because it wasn't right.

More than that, though, he couldn't stay because Harry knew what his magic would do. He recalled the smell, the feeling, of Death that clung to Draco. The kind of magic that seeped off Harry himself, that latched onto Kreacher solely from their shared proximity. It was a different flavour of Death magic to the visitors, Harry he didn't think it was any better. He couldn't subject Draco to that. He simply couldn't.

"You need to find another purpose," Harry said, tucking his chin and lowering his gaze towards his shoes as he arduously picked up his feet to a shuffling walked once more, edging past Draco on the thinly crowded pavement.

"What?" Draco asked, voice and step following after him. "Is this further hypocrisy? That I'm not allowed to emulate your motivation."

 _It's not that,_ Harry thought, and for a moment he struggled to find the right words. The right answer. The right solution. It settled upon his tongue with as much relief as despair. "What about your family, Draco?"

Harry felt rather than saw Draco pause in step and, gaze still lowered, stopped himself.

"My family?" Draco asked.

Harry nodded. "Your father."

"My father's in Azkaban, Harry," Draco said curtly. "He's not coming out any time soon."

"But if he did?" Harry turned, head still bowed, to peer at Draco behind him. "What if he did?"

Draco's cheeks were slightly wind-slapped, but Harry thought his flush was for more than the cold. As Harry watched him, he saw his jaw ripple as it clenched. He saw the shadow of a vein pulse in his forehead, and the hollowness of his cheeks, a hollowness that wasn't nearly as bad as it had once been, darken once more.

No words met Harry's suggestion, but he knew the reply well enough. He didn't need Draco's agreement, his admittance that he would surely leave in a heartbeat should his father appear.

When Draco strode past him, back rigid and chin raised, Harry followed after him. He followed, and in those silent moments, he decided: he has a new mission, a new purpose, and though it might only be a brief chase, he would pursue it as fervently as he did the aid of his visitors. For some reason, he felt he owed Draco that much.

* * *

"I've got to ask Hermione something, if that's okay?" Harry asked that evening just before bed. Or it was what he'd said, but there wasn't really all that much asking about it. Harry had decided; he would do his utmost to ensure that Hermione took him upon on his request.

Draco shrugged and hauled himself into bed. His energy, if not necessarily his unexpected motivation, had rapidly waned throughout the day following their morning endeavour, and he didn't put up much of a fight where he would at times all but demand Harry find his own sleep at the same time as him.

Harry didn't quite understand that. He didn't know why Draco demanded, couldn't quite understand the drive fuelling that order, but he accepted it. Maybe Draco simply quietly appreciated the presence of someone at his back too?

Harry descended the stairwell on quiet feet, and he was falling to his knees before the basement fireplace almost before he'd snatched a handful of Floo powder from its pot beside the hearth. The flames flashed green only seconds before he pressed his face into them.

Despite the hour and despite what must have been a busy schedule, Hermione took barely moments to appear on the other end of the call. Her eyebrows, painted green to Harry's Floo-tinged vision, shot upwards at the sight of him, and she was instantly dropping to her living room floor in almost frantic haste to scramble towards him.

"Harry?" she asked, her tone urgent. "What is it? What's wrong?"

 _Has it been so long since I've called her myself that she worries something's wrong?_ Harry thought, and he mentally berated himself for his laxness. _I should make more of an effort_.

"Nothing's wrong," he said, hearing the apology in his own voice. "I just had to ask –"

"Can I help you with something?" Hermione leant towards him, and her eagerness, her tangible concern, warmed him even as it conjured a painful weight into his throat. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Harry repeated with emphasis this time. "I promise. Nothing's wrong."

Hermione frowned, rocking back on her heels. Her shoulders slumped a little, though she didn't appear wholly relieved. "Oh. That's good, then. Did you need to ask me something?"

"Of a sort," Harry said. He took a deep breath that tasted of ash for more than the closeness of the hearth beneath his chin. "You said you needed a poster child, right? For the VLF? Will you let it be me?"

Hermione stared at him, brow furrowing further. "What?"

"I want to help, Hermione, which is what I should have done a long time ago." Harry closed his eyes briefly. He really, truly should have stepped forth so long ago, even if it terrified him to thrust himself into the public eye from where he'd once withdrawn. He wanted to help, to really offer his help to all of the falsely or exaggeratedly accused victims of war. But in particular, to help one person… "What can I do to help?"

The decision had been made, and Harry was going to stick to it. He saw as Hermione's face hardened that, even if she didn't know why, she realised his commitment too. "Alright, then," was all she said, and Harry felt hope well within him at the same time as that weighty despair and woeful anticipation of loss arose.

 _It's the right thing to do,_ he thought. _For Draco. For Lucius. For all of them. And if I can help just a few people…_

It might have been different to helping his visitors, but at least Harry might be able to do that much. Just that much.

* * *

A/N: So I know that this story has been almost ridiculously slow-paced so far, but next chapter it picks up a bit. I promise. Looking forward to sharing it with you!

As always, thank you to the wonderful people who have reviewed, particularly those I've seen time and time again. I really appreciate hearing your thoughts, so if you have the chance, please leave a word or two! Both for selfish reasons and otherwise - to improve my writing and to get that oft-needed nudge to work a bit faster - it really really helps!


	13. Chapter 13 - A Regretful Turn

**Chapter 13: A Regretful Turn**

Regular delivery of the _Daily Prophet_ had been denied to Grimmauld Place for years, and over the past weeks, Harry was more grateful than ever for that fact. He didn't want to read the news. He didn't want to see what Hermione had reported to him had taken the world by storm as Christmas approached, sailing upon a sea of incredulity.

The privacy of Grimmauld Place was impregnable, which was why it came as something of a surprise when that privacy was interrupted. The worst part was that it came at a moment that Harry was truly happy for the first time in as long as he could remember.

"Stop," he moaned, burying his head beneath the couch's throw-pillow as he slumped into the cushions. "Please, spare my ears."

"That's hardly the Christmas spirit, Harry," Draco said from directly above him, and before Harry knew what was happening, his pillow was being yanked from his hands. "Stop being such a killjoy."

And then he started to sing. Again.

It was a Good Day for Draco. A very Good Day, even. Yesterday certainly hadn't been, and the day before was even worse as it seemed it was only then that he'd realised that within a week he'd be experiencing his first Christmas without his mother. It had been one of the worst Bad Days Draco had fallen prey to in a long time. Harry had sat for most of the day in Draco's room with him, leaning against the headboard on the bed as Draco lay immobile.

But despite how bad it was, he'd talked. After a while, when Kreacher had dutifully arrived with lunch, Draco had talked and actually made the effort to pick at his lunch.

"Christmas was always a big deal at home," he said quietly, picking at a crepe that was far too sweet to be eating for lunch.

"Really?" Harry asked just as quietly but with genuine curiosity. He couldn't picture the Malfoys as being the celebratory type.

Draco nodded. "It's traditional. We were all about tradition in my family. Trees and fairy lights, tinsel and conjured snow – the works. My mother used to charm unfreezing icicles to the bannister, and we would always play Christmas tunes in the evening…"

He trailed off, his face sombre and eyes heavy, lips pressed together in a way that didn't quite stop their trembling. At his side, Harry hugged his knees, his chin rested atop them, and watched him. He was at momentarily lost for words and didn't know what to suggest. He didn't know what he _could_ suggest. Christmas had been a big deal in the Dursley's house too, but he'd never been a part of it beyond helping his aunt in the kitchen. The Weasleys had been different for him, had been fun and loving, but Harry hadn't been to a Weasley Christmas in years. He'd almost forgotten what 'Christmas spirit' felt like.

But Draco looked sad. Not miserable, but wistfully sad, and in many ways that passive grief was just as bad as active regret. Harry had come to realise that he didn't like to see Draco upset. He didn't like to see anyone distressed, but Draco was… something of a friend. Something different than a friend, but similar too.

Harry wanted to help him. He thought he always would.

"Grimmauld Place doesn't really have any traditions," he found himself saying before he even considered speaking.

Draco turned towards him. For a moment, that retrospective heaviness remained in his eyes, but it slowly faded. He frowned slightly. "What?"

"Traditions," Harry repeated.

"What about them?"

With a shrug, Harry lowered his gaze towards the blankets pooled around his feet. He plucked absently, pursing his lips. It felt a little awkward to speak, but if it would possibly help Draco… "I mean that, if you had any inclination of fulfilling any of your old ones, you're more than welcome to. This house is pretty much a blank slate for whatever you want to do with it."

Harry could feel Draco's gaze resting upon him, but he didn't look up. Not even when Draco spoke. "It wouldn't be the same."

"I know," Harry said, nodding at his toes. "But still."

"They wouldn't be… it wouldn't be like…"

"It was just a suggestion, Draco." For reasons Harry couldn't quite understand, he felt a heavy weight settle in his chest. He smothered it with the half-hearted act of folding the blankets in tiny crimps. "Only a suggestion. You don't have to do anything you don't want to. I just thought it might help."

Draco didn't say anything after that, and Harry thought that would be the end of it. It saddened him because Draco was sad, and if the past months were any indication, Harry knew that depression seemed to seep into the very walls whether intended or not. Harry felt it, if not quite the same way he did Death. Draco didn't carry that scent of Death anymore, or at least not nearly as thickly, but that something else…

Draco might not be a friend exactly, but he was something. Harry didn't know quite what that something was, but it was there. He could feel that, too. When Draco had his Bad Days, Harry felt something that wasn't quite obligation and responsibility urging him to stay by his side. When he had Good Days, Harry felt himself become brighter. He was happier when Draco was happy.

Maybe it was simply that there was someone else in the house, but Harry didn't think that was it. Maybe it was because he'd been alone for so long that any kind of company felt like Godsend, but Harry didn't think it was wholly that, either.

It could have been that it was astounding how different their relationship was to when they were children, or that Draco didn't seem like so much of a git anymore, or that there was enough of his snarky attitude left in him that his company left Harry amusedly nostalgic. But that wasn't it either. Or, more correctly, Harry didn't think that it was any of those reason exclusively, but more a combination of them all.

Like the fact that he had breakfast, lunch, and dinner with Draco every day, and it was nice to sip tea and talk – or not talk at all, as the case may be. It was nice to realise that Draco had a sweet tooth, or that he was finicky about tidiness, or that he had something of a compulsive urge to wash his hands excessively after every meal when he wasn't weighted down too greatly to struggle against the effort of climbing from bed.

It was the fact that Harry now had someone alongside him most times a visitor came to see him, and that Draco's magic always made the trip to wherever they needed to be a little easier. He disdained the idea of catching Muggle public transport, and until his insistence Harry had almost forgotten what it was like to Apparate with such convenience.

It was that Harry had someone sitting, and watching, and waiting when he felt the need to dive into easels of paint and abstract designs just to forget. That the person who sometimes sat alongside him in the library, reading or simply sitting, was warm and actually there.

Draco talked increasingly, and it wasn't the kind of talking that was breathed in whispers of the dead. He began to laugh just a little, and even if it was a little mocking at times, Harry couldn't remember the last time he'd heard real laughter. Draco poked Harry in the shoulder when he grew indignant, and Harry felt it as more than a brush of cold against his skin. He called Harry an idiot for sleeping in the alcove when there was a perfectly good bed available, and that "No, Harry, I'm not suggesting you disappear of to somewhere else. I meant _this_ bed, in _this_ room."

Little things, like that Harry caught himself being watched sometimes. Or that Draco asked about his visitors and believed him. Or that he asked about Harry's magic, both what he'd lost and what he now had. They spoke of their school days, but not of the war, of their friends but not of how some had died or abandoned them over the years, and there wasn't resentment in the exchanges. Harry had talked more in the past weeks than he had in months beforehand. And he liked it. He was actually happy.

When Draco had climbed from bed the previous morning, however, and began sweeping through the hallways and down the stairwells of Grimmauld Place with his wand raised, Harry understood a different kind of happiness. It wasn't so much delight for the magic spreading forth at Draco's command, forming glassy icicles on the bannister, translucent fairies dancing in the air, tinsel, and trees, and baubles hanging alongside lights. All of that was wonderful, and Grimmauld Place actually seemed to brighten for it a little bit.

The best part was that Draco forcibly thrust aside his melancholy and actually seemed satisfied with his work. More than that, on that particular evening he seemed in an infectiously good mood.

Harry never would have thought that the primary living room could even manage such a vibrant theme, but it seemed to thrum with good-humour and brightness. Much of the reason for that was Draco; that he was happy, and that he was laughing. Harry could almost forget his own melancholy for what was to come at any unexpected moment, his regret that what had become actually enjoyable, actually _nice_ , would be ending for him so soon.

Draco didn't know it. The absence of the _Daily Prophet_ was certainly beneficial in that regard, because otherwise… Harry didn't know how he would react, but given he was only increasingly falling back into his demanding and objectionable ways of late, Harry supposed it wasn't unlikely to suspect he'd have a problem with it.

But Harry wasn't thinking about that. He couldn't, because Draco was singing along to the Christmas record once more, and he was so terribly out of tune that all Harry could think was that even he could do a better job than Draco was.

"Please, stop," he all but begged, pushing himself upright as Draco danced away from him with the cushion he'd stolen from Harry's head. "My ears are practically bleeding."

Draco darted around the low-lying coffee table, tossing the cushion between his hands. He smirked through his off-key singing, not in the least embarrassed. " _Dance around the fire, see it glow in all its light; and when the sparks go flying, theeeeen –"_

"Stop," Harry said, snatching another cushion from beside him and lobbing it towards Draco. "I never knew you were so bad at singing or I wouldn't ever have agreed to entering the same room as you."

Draco ducked the pillow and plopped down into the couch opposite Harry. He paused mid-chorus, glancing towards where it flopped down to the floor behind him. "Right in the dragon's face," he said, speaking through the music that still played jovially and gesturing towards the dragon painted upon the wall. "If you didn't like your own art so much, Harry, I could get rid of it so you could start again."

Harry scrunched his nose at Draco. "It was one of my first ones, so it's kind of crap –"

"I didn't say it was crap."

"- but I still like it." Harry slumped sideways onto the couch, tucking his legs up after him. "It shows progress and all, you know."

Draco was absently nodding to the Christmas tune still playing from the recorder as he stared over his shoulder. "A Hungarian Horntail, right?" he asked.

"Bingo."

"That's morbid of you."

"It's for posterity."

Draco glanced towards him, an eyebrow arching. "Really? For posterity?"

Harry only smiled in reply.

They hadn't many plans for Christmas, the two of them. Or at least Harry didn't. If his gift to Draco – or what was a sort of gift – was to arrive on time, Draco would surely be thoroughly distracted enough, but for himself Harry hadn't any thoughts. He wasn't going to the Weasleys. He wasn't going to celebrate at all, really, and if he saw Hermione then that would be about the culmination of it.

That evening, however, in the midst of music and merriment even without the traditional wine or eggnog for accompaniment, Harry fathomed that he might be enjoying his own kind of Christmas.

Draco plucked one of the mince pies from the plate on the coffee table and nearly swallowed it in one bite. "You know," he said, speaking through his mouthful in a way that practically jeered at his usually finicky manner, "I never quite understood why you even agreed to do that bloody tournament in fourth year."

"What do you mean?" Harry asked, propping an arm under his head. This was the kind of talking he liked. The talk about nothing relevant anymore but still just a little interesting.

Draco gestured vaguely. "I mean," he said, popping the last of his pie into his mouth and dusting his fingers, "why didn't you just say fuck it and tell them to shove it up their arses?"

"I'm sure the ministry would have been so happy about me saying that," Harry said, rolling his eyes.

Draco rolled his own in exaggerated mimicry. He looked so much like how he'd been in their younger years in that moment; he was less gaunt than he'd been, if still thin, and less sickly wan, if still pale. That blankness of his expression, too – for just that evening it was gone. Harry couldn't even remember the exact moment it had fully disappeared.

"Honestly, if the ministry thought it was acceptable that a fourteen-year-old participate in that tournament, I don't have much confidence in what they consider 'agreeable'."

Harry's smile became teasinly. "Why Draco, you actually sound like you might have been worried."

Draco snorted. "At the time? Definitely not. Let's face it, Harry, we basically wanted to beat one another to a pulp in school."

"True," Harry said. He hadn't felt anything even vaguely akin to violent urges in years, but it was undeniable that he and Draco had been at one another's throats.

"My friends and I basically bet on how long you'd last."

"Your confidence in me is comforting," Harry said dryly.

"It should be," Draco replied. "I was the one that was practically supporting you with my bet against my father, you know."

"Why am I not surprised you bet against me?"

" _For_ you, incidentally." Draco smiled as he twirled his captured pillow between his hands. It was strange, that smile, because there was no malice or resentment from the past even vaguely shadowing its edges. Regardless of what they spoke of, it was in the past. "As it happens, my father had less confidence in you than even I did."

"Lucky me," Harry said, rolling his eyes again. He wasn't even offended; the past seemed so long ago.

"But why?" Draco said.

"Why what?"

"Why did you let them basically walk all over you? Why not pull out of the tournament?"

Harry shrugged, shifting slightly to dangle his arm over the side of his couch. "I've thought about that."

Draco waited for a beat before prompting him. "And?"

"And I don't know. They just said I wasn't supposed to and that I had to participate. I guess I just figured I should do it."

"Should?" Draco tucked the pillow against his chest as he folded his arms as he frowned. "You know, Harry, I've reached a conclusion."

"And what might that be? Please, I'm breathless to hear it."

Draco narrowed his eyes, took a deliberate breath, and started singing again. " _Jump a left, then a right in try a Lindy-hop; turn a jig then a jazz with a –"_

"Alright, alright." Harry pushed himself upright with a huff of amusement, shaking his head. The song rippling from the record player would be forever ruined. "Please, stop singing and tell me your conclusions."

Draco harrumphed, but it seemed more satisfied that indignant. "I've decided," he said, "that you have an obligation problem."

Harry tucked his leg comfortably against himself once more, dropping his chin atop his knee. "What?"

"Yes." Draco nodded his head, considering. "What with the whole saving the world thing, and the tournament thing, and the visitor thing –"

"Okay, okay, enough with the examples, you've made your point." Harry shoved his words aside with a wrinkle of his nose. "So what?"

"So." Pursing his lips, Draco plucked absently at the tassels on the pillow he held. "Have you ever thought about maybe not? That maybe you could just do what you want to do?"

Harry shifted uncomfortably in his seat. The conversation was drifting towards dangerous territory, dangerously deep, and he wasn't sure if he could handle that. At least not about himself. "Just because it's obligatory doesn't mean I don't want to do it."

"Harry," Draco said, admonishment thickening his tone.

"Besides, I actually do want to help my visitors. It's not just because they would nag me otherwise."

"Harry."

"People do what they're supposed to do all the time. It's not like it's unusual."

"Yes, but you –"

"You're doing it right now, even." Harry gestured to the room around them. "With all of the decorations and whatnot. And the presents. And the tree."

Draco paused mid interruption to glance around the room himself. It was indeed an explosion reeking of Christmas. There was the tree, bedecked in more tinsel than necessary. The fairy lights lining the window. The snow that fell from the ceiling and disappeared after descending barely a foot, and the hovering baubles that looked like will o' wisps. To top it off, the crackling fire was charmed to flicker between red and green, and the Christmas jives that sounded from the record-player seemed nothing if not an embrace of the season.

And Draco had done it. He'd done it all by himself, with his own magic. He hadn't grumbled once to the effect that Harry wasn't helping him with his efforts, and that meant something. Or at least it did to Harry.

Humming to himself, Draco nodded with a slight smile. "Yes, well, traditions might have a touch of obligation to them, but at least they're enjoyable."

"Are you enjoying yourself?" Harry asked curiously.

Draco turned slowly towards him. His smile remained, but it grew just a little contemplative. He nodded slowly. "Yes. I think I am."

Harry smiled. He couldn't help himself. Making Draco happy… When had that become such a desire of his?

But Draco shook off the satisfied seriousness of the mood in an instant when he started to his feet. "But the most important part of all the traditions is the gift-giving. Presents are, of course, the focal point of Christmas."

Harry snorted as much because he knew the falsehood of Draco's claim as because it was such a juvenile opinion. "Of course you'd think that."

"Naturally," Draco said, crossing the room towards the tree. He dropped to a squat alongside it. "And I've just as naturally bought you something."

"Wait, they're actually presents?" Harry said, straightening in his seat. "I thought they were just boxes wrapped up or something. When did you even manage to get them?"

Then the full weight of Draco's words settled in. A strange tightness welled in his throat, clamping fiercely. "You got me a present?" he asked, a little choked.

Draco plucked up one particular bundle, rolling it between his hands and regarding it thoughtfully. "There's this delightful thing called mail order, Harry, in case you'd missed such a wondrous invention. And yes, I did get you a present, so you'd better bloody well hope for your sake that you got me one, too."

It would have been a perfectly poetic moment for Draco's 'present' to have arrived at that moment. Almost cliché, even. It didn't, of course, because reality wasn't a fairy tale of convenient coincidences, but Harry barely considered that. He barely thought of it at all as he struggled against the upwelling of emotion rising within him and attempted to casually shrug aside Draco's teasing, his prodding askance, and the supposed 'guilt' he should have for 'forgetting to get him a present!'

It wasn't even that the blanket Harry unwrapped was anything special. It was, felt so strangely and magically warm that it had to have been charmed to be so, but that wasn't the point. Not really.

Poetic justice did make an appearance, however, because that evening was when his own gift really did arrive. Right there, when Harry sat across from Draco in the basement kitchen and picked at his dinner, silently rolling his eyes at the amount of mint jelly Draco was lathering upon his lamb.

"It's delicious," Draco said primly, the good-humour that had infected him for most of the day still tilting the corners of his lips.

"It's the sweetest thing at the table," Harry said with a sigh. "Of course you'd like it."

"The sweetest thing for now," Draco emphasised. "Kreacher always makes dessert."

"I'm pretty sure that's specifically for your benefit."

"What a load of bollocks."

Harry paused with a potato halfway to his mouth and raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

Draco folded a piece of lamb into his own mouth and seemed to take a deliberately long time to chew it before replying. "You can't tell me that you don't like desserts."

"Actually –"

"Even back in school, you always had a thing for treacle tart." Draco smeared even more jelly onto his lamb until it coated it like a layer of icing. "Don't pretend you didn't."

"That's an exception," Harry said, then paused and slowly lowered his fork. "Wait, how the bloody hell do you even know that?"

Draco raised an eyebrow but didn't meet Harry's gaze. "Hm?"

"That is such a weird thing to even notice. How did you –?"

"You're focusing on the trivialities," Draco said, waving his jelly-smeared fork in Harry's direction. "It's natural to watch your enemies from across the room. Of course it is."

Harry lowered his gaze, tucking his chin in an attempt to hide his smile. It was a little bit of a struggle; weeks ago, Draco had told him he hated him. In many ways Harry thought he still did, or that he at least resented him. But then he would say things like that, would seem to discredit their past rivalry with tone rather than words, and Harry would wonder.

Draco still stuck around, even when he could leave if he wanted to. He had magic, after all. He was getting better, just as Harry had all but ordered him to. Draco remained to accompany Harry with his visitors, helping him to get back with more speed than Harry could manage himself. He spoke more, and Harry enjoyed his company. He liked having him around. And maybe, just a little, Draco might not hate being around so much anymore either.

 _Too bad it can't last forever_ , he thought, and as if triggered by his thoughts, the fire spluttered and crackled with green fire. Harry glanced towards it immediately, his fork slipped from his fingers with a clatter.

"It was practically a pastime at the Slytherin table," Draco was saying, studying a chunk of lamb speared on the end of his fork. "People-watching, it's called. It's a useful skill to have for…"

He trailed off as the fire spluttered again and a figure rose from the flames. In a frantic stumble, Hermione appeared, all but falling into the kitchen. She straightened immediately, sweeping her robes free of soot, and spared a glance towards the dining table.

Harry half rose to his feet, but it was Draco who spoke. "Granger," he said, a frown rapidly forming. "This is an unexpected surprise. What are you…?"

He trailed off again, and Harry couldn't blame him. He likely would have done the same had he not known that Lucius Malfoy would follow on Hermione's heels.

Lucius had always been something of a clone of Draco – or, more correctly, the other way around. And yet in at that moment, all of his height, his gauntness, and the physical distress of his frame, he looked even more like his son. Or how his son had been, because with a glance towards Draco, Harry truly noticed for the first time that he'd changed. How he'd gotten better.

Except that he was suddenly paler than Harry had seen him in weeks. Paler than even Draco had been to the point that the blue veins on the side of his temple were starkly visible. The wrinkles on his brow were more pronounced, and the cords of muscles in his throat were apparent even in the small portion visible above the high neck of his jumper. Lucius Malfoy wore the effects of years of Azkaban imprisonment like one would a gown of constricting tightness forced into for a family dinner. Harry understood that feeling. He'd been just as forced by the Durselys on a number of occasions.

Lucius paused on the hearth, just a step inside the room. He didn't stumble as Hermione had, and it was likely only the clinging vestiges of his upbringing, the composure demanded by his family name, that enabled his steadiness. But when he drew his gaze across the room, when his eyes fell upon Draco… Something shifted. Something snapped.

Harry didn't see quite what it was. He hadn't the time, for at his side, Draco uttered a strangled sound and lurched to his feet. His chair clattered as it fell over backwards. He stuttered a step towards his father, an arm rising, reaching, as his mouth fell open and bottom lip gave a visible tremble.

"Father," he said. Or whispered, as quietly as one of Harry's visitors.

Lucius took another step from the hearth. This one was slightly staggered, almost a stumble, and that was all it took for Draco. It was all he needed to launch himself across the room and fling himself at his father.

There was no hugging as Harry might have expected. No fierce embrace, no crushing, desperate clasp. There was none of that. Instead, Draco all but collided into his father, but his hands rose immediately to grasp his shoulders as though to hold himself up. His head ducked slightly as though to peer up into Lucius' face, to speak silent words through expression alone.

Or they were unspoken at first. Unspoken, until –

"How?" Draco choked out, his voice hoarse. "How is this even possible? I don't –"

"Not now," Lucius said, his voice warbling and head shaking. "Not now, not –"

"You're here. You're really… I can't believe –"

"You're alright? You're definitely –?"

"Father, I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry. Mother, she –"

"Not now, Draco, don't –"

"I don't know – don't know what to… I can't –"

No hugging. Nothing of anything visibly affectionate. No clasping to chests, fingers sinking into robes as though never intending to let go. There were no hasty kisses pressed to foreheads, no tears of joy or relief or in evidence of the sadness in their stuttering exchange of words.

But Harry saw it nonetheless. He saw all of that, and it hit him like a physical blow. He'd never liked Lucius Malfoy. Granted, he'd never liked Draco either, but Lucius hadn't redeemed himself even slightly in Harry's eyes. He might be not quite as villainous as the Wizarding world perceived him, but Harry was under no allusions that he was a good person.

Not until then. People who didn't have at least a little good inside of them didn't look like that when they were reunited with their only child. Their hands didn't shake with suppressed emotion as they grasped that child's forearms, fingers becoming claws in their desperate tightness. Their voices didn't shake with more than just feebleness, and they didn't… they wouldn't have…

 _He did what he did in the war for his family_ , Harry thought, a detached reminder that he'd considered for years but only intensively over the past months. _At least towards the end. He did it for them_.

When Harry had fully risen to his own feet, he didn't quite know. He couldn't remember. Not that it really mattered, but in the numbness that flooded through him that one realisation seemed to echo as the only certainty. The sight of Draco, his back to Harry, and Lucius, who hadn't blinked away from Draco for a second, was so firmly suspended before him that he couldn't even attempt to look away from them.

The kitchen seemed to orbit around them. The dinner was forgotten. It would have been beautiful, would have been good, except for the heaviness that was rapidly rising within Harry and threatening to drag him down.

 _It was the right thing to do_ , he reminded himself as the thought arose and finally managed to vanquish the ringing numbness slightly. _It was. I don't regret it._

 _Much._

 _No, I don't, but it is a little sad that… that now he'll be..._

"How is this even possible?" Draco was saying – or repeating, for Harry realised he said it almost like a chant. "How? How're you here? How did you -?"

"Not now," Lucius said for the umpteenth time. He seemed barely capable of saying anything else himself. "Not now, Draco."

"But they weren't – they wouldn't have let you – let you leave. It shouldn't be possible that –"

"Don't worry about that. Not now. We'll talk later, when –"

"Harry."

Harry flinched at Hermione's murmur from his side. With a struggle, he dragged his gaze from Draco, from Draco and Lucius, and glanced towards her. It was the first time he'd truly been aware of her since she'd arrived.

She looked tired. Always tired, was Hermione, but now more than ever. Harry was responsible for that, at least in part. He'd been the one to approach her. He'd offered the suggestion, the solution of sorts, and he'd… it was his fault that…

With a tilt of her head, Hermione gestured towards the basement steps. Harry understood the meaning behind her nod in an instant and, with only a final glance over his shoulder towards the Malfoys, with only a passing moment to hear Draco's desperate question and Lucius' crackling reply, he followed her from the room.

The hallway seemed to echo with silence after the kitchen. The library even more so, and Harry, for a moment, longed for his mother's presence. Lily, even dead, could brighten the room. She made it just that little bit more tolerable.

But Lily wasn't there. Instead, Hermione slumped heavily into Lily's usual armchair. Her shoulders sagged, and she tucked her hands between her knees as though to warm them.

Harry lowered himself into the chair opposite her, elbows dropping onto his knees and chin into his hands. He stared at her for a long moment before finally speaking. "When did he get out?"

Hermione lifted her gaze immediately but she took a moment to reply. She raised a hand to rake through the frazzled mess of her hair, half springing from its tie, and sighed heavily. "If you'll believe it, barely an hour ago."

"An hour?"

"He demanded to be taken to Draco immediately." Hermione shook her head, a slightly rueful smile touching her lips. "I guess Azkaban didn't entirely shake the pureblood sense of entitlement out of him."

Harry couldn't even bring himself to attempt a smile. It felt too hard, the weight settling upon him too heavy to overcome. "That's good," he said, staring blankly at the worn carpet before him. "That will be good for him. With Draco."

Hermione watched him. He could feel it even without looking She caught her bottom lip between her teeth, took a breath to speak, then paused. It was a long moment before she tried again. "That was why you did it, wasn't it?"

Raising his gaze from where it had fallen to the floor, Harry met Hermione's gaze. "What?"

Hermione shook her head. "Don't act like that, Harry. You know what I'm talking about."

"I'm –"

"You hate the limelight," she continued over him. "You always have, but even more since everyone thinks you've become all but a humble hermit, hiding from fame with some misguided sense of humility. I was surprised when you said you would be the face of our campaign a few weeks ago, but now…"

Harry stared at her and felt a frown settle on his brow. "What do you mean?"

Gnawing her lip, Hermione shook her head once more. Her fingers fiddled with one another, twining, untangling, then retwining. "I guess I didn't realise."

"Realise what?"

"… That you'd actually become so close to him."

Harry opened his mouth to reply but no words came forth. What could he say to that? He wasn't sure if 'close' was the right word. He'd grown to like Draco in a way, and he'd seen a lot, had shared a lot, and thus felt comfortable in his company in a way that he didn't have with many people. Maybe with anyone, Harry thought upon reconsideration. Anyone who was still alive, that was, though Hermione was about all he had to consider.

But close?

Without realising when he'd started, Harry found himself nodding. "I guess so," he said. "I just…"

"Just what?" Hermione asked quietly.

"I just… wanted to help him. I want him to be happy."

Hermione didn't say another word after that. She didn't even begin to. Instead, even her hands fell silent in their motions, and she slumped heavily back into Lily's armchair as though the weight of a lifetime had finally caught up with her. Maybe it had.

Harry didn't say anything either. He felt suddenly just as heavy, just as resigned, and very small. He'd done what he could. He'd spoken to the ministry, to everyone who would listen, and he'd slipped on his hero-front as he hadn't in years like an old, worn set of robes. He'd spoken to the _Daily Prophet_ just as Hermione had suggested, had voiced his agreement with the sentiments of the VLF and posed for countless pictures. Whenever he could manage, whenever it felt safe to slip away and leave Draco – which wasn't as often as Hermione and the VLF would have liked – Harry had done.

And it had worked.

He didn't know exactly how it had happened. He hadn't wanted to know. Harry only cared that it did, and that the desired outcome arose. Lucius was out of Azkaban, he was here with Draco, and that meant…

The tightness clasping Harry's throat was almost suffocating. _That means he'll be okay. Draco can't stay here with me, but when he leaves he'll be okay._ Funny, how such a thought wasn't quite as reassuring as it should have been. Not nearly.

How long he and Hermione sat in stagnated silence Harry didn't know. It was long enough that Hermione fell to sleep, which he supposed was only to be expected. Working as hard as she did and for the VLF on the side, he could only assume she was running on steam more than actual fuel. How she managed to keep pace he had no idea, but she did. The plug seemed to have been pulled, however, and she'd all but sprawled in the armchair like a discarded puppet after some immeasurable period of time.

That was when Draco arrived. Harry had curled into his seat, arm wrapping tightly around his raised knees in a hug that always seemed to hold him together just a little bit when the exhausting weight of the world and those he couldn't help settled upon him. Harry hadn't felt that weight in a while. He'd forgotten how heavy it could be.

Draco paused in the doorway. It was quiet enough in the library, in the whole of Grimmauld Place, that Harry heard him the moment he entered. He glanced towards him and as he did, Draco caught his eyes.

He hadn't been crying. Draco didn't really cry, Harry had realised, even if he'd seen his eyes thickening with glassy tears on a number of occasions. But even if he hadn't been crying, his cheeks were a little blotchy. Beneath that blotchiness was paleness and an exhaustion different to that elicited by his depression. His hands propped on the doorframe, and they seemed to be the only thing holding him up.

His voice was strong when he spoke, however. Harry almost hadn't expected that – but then, Draco had shown he was strong a number of times in the recent months that Harry had known him. Maybe he should have expected it after all.

"Why did you do it?"

Harry blinked.

"You don't care about fame. You don't care about making a scene for the world. You've shown that you don't feel you can participate in the Victim's Liberation Front either." Draco's jaw visibly tightened, but he ploughed through whatever thought plagued him. "So why?"

Harry blinked again. He didn't have to speak. Draco would get there eventually.

Which he did. After a moment, clicking his tongue, he glanced over his shoulder as though towards his father before turning back to Harry. "My father told me, you know. About all of it as he'd heard it." He paused against, pressed his lips together for a moment, and continued. "He said that apparently you deliberately asked for the release of certain individuals in Azkaban, and that he was one of them."

This time, when Draco paused, he frowned slightly in a way that told Harry he wasn't going to continue. Not immediately, anyway. So Harry spoke. "Yes. That's right."

"Why would you -?"

"You know why I did it, Draco."

Draco pressed his lips together one more. His fingers visibly tightened on the door frame. "Did you… did you make that promise to my mother, too?"

His voice caught a little on his words as it always did, but he hardly seemed to notice. Draco pinned Harry with his frowning stare that only deepened when Harry shook his head.

"No," Harry said. "Not because of that."

"Then because…?"

Harry sighed. Draco wasn't stupid, but he clearly didn't understand. Not yet, anyway. "You need him, Draco," he said. "That's why."

It was Draco's turn to stare and blink. "I…?"

"You're better than you were. I know you are. And that's great. But you need him." Harry's arms tightened around his shins just a little more as he struggled to continue without inflection. "You need someone who'll help you through what happens from here on out."

Draco's lips parted just slightly, his frown lowering so far that it seemed to darken his eyes. "But…"

"Hm?"

"But I thought…" Draco swallowed. "Isn't that what you're doing?"

The almost innocent confusion in his voice was more child-like than someone Draco's age should have been able to manage. It wasn't quite hurt but simply uncomprehending. Or not hurt yet. Harry had hoped it wouldn't be, but…

He shook his head. "I'm only helping until you could find someone else to support you. You can't stay here with me forever."

"What do you -?"

"It's not feasible. For either of us. You've got to work on your health – you know you still do, and with someone who knows what they're doing more than I do – and I have my visitors. I need to help them, too."

Rigidity set its teeth into Draco's shoulders, trembling down his arms until his fingers tightened, knuckles turning white with it. The blotchiness in his cheeks rose once more. "You don't want me around anymore."

"I didn't say that," Harry said. _Never that. I don't think I'd ever –_

"You just did. 'Not feasible'." Draco scoffed, and the innocent confusion disappeared. "Have I become a burden to you, then?"

"I didn't say that either," Harry said quietly.

"You did, you said –"

"No, Draco. I didn't." Harry kept his voice low, but it sliced through Draco's nonetheless. Not that it seemed to alleviate his rising anger, his affront, his… something that could have almost been sadness. But he paused in his tirade for long enough that Harry could continue, and that was enough. "I said that it would be better for the both of us." _For you._ "We've both reached the point where there's nothing more to be gained from you staying here –" _For you, just so you can leave_ "– and with your father free, would you really want to stay here?"

 _You need to leave,_ the voice chanted in Harry's head. It was a voice, was words, that he tried so ardently to avoid contemplating, but there was no restraining them this time. _I can't let my magic get to you, and if you stick around, it will. Death sinks its teeth in, and even when it's not dying, Death magic leaves its mark_.

Draco had to leave for that, if nothing else. Harry didn't want to think of what would happen if he stayed long enough for Death to wear off on him.

"You manipulated the situation," Draco said, just as quietly as Harry had spoken.

Harry bit the inside of his lip. "Manipulated makes it sound malicious."

"Isn't it?"

"No. Aren't you happy that your father's free?"

Draco's eyes narrowed. "Don't bring my father into this."

"I have to. He's a key part of it already."

"You manipulated –"

"No, I didn't."

"You did. For your own benefit, without even asking –" Draco cut himself off and snapped his chin sharply sideways. His jaw tightened once more, the muscles bunching in his cheek. "This is what you always do, isn't it?"

Harry frowned himself this time, confused. "What?"

"This. Sending people away. It's what you do."

"What do you…?"

"With all of your visitors." Draco glanced back towards him, a light surfacing in his eyes that Harry didn't understand. He hadn't seen it before, and it was confusing in its brightness, somehow both desperate and demanding. "As soon as you've fixed them or done what they've asked of you, you send them away."

"Draco," Harry began.

"So you've helped me, and now you're sending me on my way? Just like them?"

Harry swallowed. It hurt. It hurt so badly, because he didn't want Draco to leave. Harry didn't know what Draco was to him, didn't know what he wanted him from him, but it certainly wasn't his absence. That want was different to what Draco needed, though. He had to go, and it didn't matter what Harry thought. It didn't matter if it hurt. Harry was used to people leaving. After a while, they would all leave and he would be…

"It's what's best for you," Harry said, barely more than a whisper. "Leaving is always what's best."

Draco stared at him. Harry could feel it even if he couldn't see it with his gaze dropping to the worn carpet before his chair once more. Draco stared, and Harry stared, and the vast different in the air between them to how it had been in the living room with the record player, in the kitchen at dinner, struck Harry with a ferocity that was painful itself.

Not as much as Draco's words, however.

"Fine," Draco said harshly. "Fine, if that's what you want. If you want to be alone so badly, Potter, then you're bloody well welcome to it. I won't burden you with my presence any longer."

He made a scene out of leaving. Harry felt that too, even if he didn't quite see it. Flinging himself from the doorframe, Draco spun away from the library and all but stomped down the hall. His steps were just as heavy as he retreated into the basement, loud enough that Hermione stirred slightly in her sleep, if only to huddle further into the armchair.

There was a pause. Harry unconsciously strained his ears and he thought he could even hear the murmur of voices. Except that, after a few moments, those voices stopped. The shadow of them faded entirely, and Harry…

For the first time in weeks, he felt utterly alone. In months, or even perhaps years, because loneliness was that much starker after being briefly alleviated. Hermione was at his side, but she was only temporarily so, and Harry couldn't make her stay any more than he could Draco. He had his visitors, but they shared his company only sporadically and almost always driven by a distinct need. James, and Lily, and Padfoot, and Fred – they were different, but they weren't really here.

The weight became distinctly other in its heaviness. Harry hadn't felt anything like this before – or at least not for a long time. Not since the Weasleys had been forcibly turned from him by his own hand, and for some reason this felt just as bad. Maybe even worse, because Harry hadn't known what he was getting himself into at the time he'd fallen into isolation. It had been a necessary horror, something to be endured, if only temporarily. Harry hadn't known.

This time he did. This time he knew. Draco wasn't coming back.

When Harry had closed his eyes, he couldn't remember. When he'd taken to clinging to his own knees as though they were a buoy in a tumultuous sea he didn't know either. Hermione's soft, slumbering breaths were soothing, but only slightly, and that soft ease didn't help all that much.

Neither did the familiar cold, hollow feeling of Death when it welled just before him, a tangible presence felt if not immediately seen. Even familiar as it was, when a cool breath of air brushed against his cheek in a caress like fingers, it didn't help. Not really at all.

"I'm so sorry, sweetheart," Lily whispered.

Harry couldn't open his eyes, even when he managed a reply. "I'm fine, Mum."

"No," she said. "No you're not."

That constricting thickness clogged Harry's throat so that he couldn't reply. Instead of trying, he shook his head. She was right. He wasn't. And he realised that even while acknowledging that there was nothing he could do about it.

He might not be alright, but he would get there. Hopefully. And even if he didn't… At least Draco would be. At least the Weasleys, and Hermione, and every other family of the visitors who came to him – they would all be fine. That was what really mattered. Not that he was left behind at the end of it.

After all, everyone left eventually.

* * *

A/N: I have nothing much I can say except I'm sorry. I'll try and update again as soon as possible.


	14. Chapter 14 - Falling To Your Knees

**Chapter 14: Falling To Your Knees**

Christmas was spent alone that year. It wasn't the first time for Harry, but it felt even more starkly so than it had the previous year.

Harry almost missed it when it passed. He simply lost the day, cocooned in the gift of a magical blanket that was all the protection he had from the chill of the cold and his own body. Christmas Day felt very much like every other day; the only difference that year was that the tinsel and fairy lights Draco had strewn around Grimmauld Place still twinkled in silent, gentle merriment.

That merriment felt somehow spiteful when Harry was the only one to witness it.

~|January 1st|~

"I didn't even drink that much, but you know how New Year's Eve can get."

Harry smiled at Hermione's head where it hung in the fireplace amidst a wreath of green flames. The truth was he couldn't really relate because he didn't know. He didn't really know at all, because he hadn't properly celebrated New Year's Eve in years, but he wouldn't tell her that.

"A hangover suits you," Harry said.

Hermione glared at him, a green hand appearing briefly to scrub at an eye. "I am not hung over."

"Really? Because you kind of look like you are."

"That's only because you haven't seen everyone else. Ron's been passed out on the couch since he woke up at midday to eat a fistful of bacon before collapsing again." Hermione sighed, shaking her head fondly as she glanced over her shoulder as though towards Ron himself. Harry swallowed the lump that rose in his throat at her words before she could turn back towards him.

"Everyone had fun, then?" Harry asked, leaning casually back on his hands as he crossed his legs on the floor before him.

"Yeah," Hermione said. "George's fireworks display was incredible."

"I'll bet. They always have been."

"You'd have liked it."

"Probably. Did you catch any of it on camera?"

Hermione nodded. "Just a few shots. I can bring them over when they get developed if you'd like."

Harry smiled gratefully for more than the offer. Hermione hadn't encouraged him to meet the Weasleys again since before Christmas, an encouragement that had been a weekly occurrence for as long as he could remember. But more than that, she hadn't pushed him to see anyone, which was definitely a good thing.

Harry didn't want to see anyone. Not at the moment. Seeing anybody besides Hermione and his visitors hurt just a little for reasons he didn't want to explore too deeply. There was a lot that Harry avoided thinking about these days, a lot that he left in his past. What had happened before Christmas had become one of those things.

"I'm going to throw something together for dinner," Hermione said, speaking into the lull between them. "I think Ginny was going to drop over and she's always peckish after she's been drinking."

"You should probably go, then," Harry said.

"Why they can't just make things for themselves…"

"Clearly your cooking skills trump theirs." Harry smiled as Hermione's eyebrows rose. "Just because you can barely cook toast doesn't mean they're not all worse than you."

"They should just go to the Burrow," Hermione sighed. "Molly has only ever scolded them once for getting hammered, and that was years ago. I've done it more recently."

"You sensible thing," Harry teased half-heartedly. "Would you like me to cook up something for Kreacher to take over?"

Hermione huffed for an indignant moment but brushed that indignation aside as it melted into thanks. "It's fine. I wouldn't want to trouble you. They'll just have to have burnt toast."

"Or unburnt toast in your case. We sorted out how the timer worked, remember?"

Hermione smiled. It grew a little sad after a moment as she stared at Harry, but she didn't comment. Her mouth opened as though to speak, but she closed it after a moment and only hummed.

"What?" Harry prompted.

"Nothing," Hermione said, shaking her head. "Nothing at all. You're alright, Harry?"

Harry nodded, even if it felt like a lie. Even if it always did, always had, and Hermione likely knew it. 'Alright', meant happy, and Harry knew a little better what happy felt like now. No, he didn't think he was 'alright', but… "I'm fine. Thanks."

"Then I'll see you later? I'll drop around for tea sometime this week, okay?"

"Okay."

"I promise."

"I know you will. I'll see you later, Hermione."

The fireplace flickered and spat for a moment as Hermione's head disappeared from the flames. The gaping emptiness she'd filled seemed even more hollow when the fire faded back from green to a warm orange.

Harry stared into the hearth for a long time after that. He didn't think. He didn't let himself, not anymore. It was easier not to think about anything, not to wonder, and to only rise to the occasion when a visitor needed him. His bout of publicity, resurfacing to be grasped by the hungry jaws of media in a struggle to support the VLF, was something that still left an echo ringing in Harry's ears. He'd always hated that kind of thing.

But still, other things …

Certain other things Harry didn't think about. Those things he didn't let himself consider. Sitting on the floor in the basement kitchen, the cold stone beneath him not quite as cold as his own hands and the wall clock ticking in a way that had long stopped being annoying to Harry, he didn't let himself think anymore. To think would be to ponder the emptiness of the room around him, the house storeys above his head, the room at the very top that was stagnant in the absence of its resident. That part Harry didn't think about the most.

Which didn't mean he didn't feel, though, but he couldn't very well do much about that, now, could he?

~|January 12th|~

"I don't understand."

Hunching his shoulders, Harry could only stare at the woman before him. Though the hood of his jumper was drawn up, it did little against the rain, and he could feel drops dribbling down his back under his shirt. He stared at the woman where she clutched her umbrella, almost as useless as his hood, and flicked her gaze between Harry, the note clutched in her hand, and the open grave at her side.

Harry had been in more cemeteries than he cared could count. He'd been to more funerals than he wanted to remember, too, and most of them for people he knew only as visitors in need of his help. Broken Hill Cemetery was a small one, one of the smallest he'd ever visited, and nothing quite so outstanding as the Magnificent Seven throughout London. Its modesty was echoed in the absence of attendees at the ceremony. It was apparent in the emptiness that followed, the minister leaving, and the yawning expanse of grass and headstones unbroken by loved ones visiting those that had been lost.

Harry was the only one who remained at the open graveside. Harry and a woman who looked so like her sister that she could have been her twin. It was silent but for the pattering of rain, the distant traffic too far away to interrupt their relative privacy. For once, Harry almost wished that there was an interruption.

"I don't…" The woman faltered as she attempted to speak again. She glanced back towards Harry, then down to the note he'd given her. It was a little crumpled, a little damp from his fingers and the incessant rain, but that wasn't what made it so pathetic.

It was the words upon it. Or, more correctly, the lack of words, because Harry had copied those from the visitor who had dragged him through the rain to that cemetery at barely dawn. That was what made it so sorrowful.

 _You know why I had to do what I did. And I don't regret it. Just don't hate me forever. I love you, but you know why I did it._ _Goodbye_.

That was it. That was all of it. Harry didn't understand what it meant and apparently those words, barely four sentences, was enough to tie the dead woman to the land of the living until she could give it to him. Harry didn't understand –

And apparently the woman's sister didn't either.

With the hand holding her umbrella, the woman, wiped at her cheeks to brush aside what could have been rain but likely wasn't. She shook her head, her forehead creasing further in its miserable frown, and stared down at the note.

"Why did she give you this?" she asked.

Harry clenched his hands in his pockets. "I don't know."

"What does it mean? Did she tell you? Did she say why she…?"

The woman trailed off, glancing up at Harry, and Harry could only hunch his shoulders further and clench his fists tighter. "She didn't say," he said. "She just wanted me to give it to you. As a final word."

The woman's face tightened further and more tears dribbled down her hollow cheeks. "It doesn't make any sense," she said, her voice cracking, and the words seemed more to herself than to Harry.

Harry didn't speak, for what could he say? Maybe he could have tried to comfort the woman, but that likely wouldn't have helped. He'd learnt a long time ago that comforting strangers didn't often turn out as he'd intended. He could have tried to interpret the note, offering an explanation he didn't have, but it would have felt wrong to do so. He could have withheld the note entirely, but then his visitor would have been indefinitely stuck in a vague sort of limbo. Like Harry's parents. Like Padfoot and Fred. Like the Puppy Girl.

The visitor was gone. She'd left as soon as Harry had handed the note over, relief softening her face in a way that looked nigh impossible for her sister to mimic given the pain tightening her eyes. So confused. So horribly sad, and it was because of Harry and the visitor who had disappeared.

 _It's probably a good thing she left_ , he thought. _If she'd seen her sister like this, she probably would have stayed._

The thought still saddened him, however, though only that. Harry couldn't feel much beyond a pervasive sadness and regret for the woman shaking and crying and muttering before him. He hadn't been able to feel past his own yawning hollowness of late. It had become almost ironically comforting in its consistency.

Better hollowness than anything else.

The woman sniffled. Harry shuffled in place. The rain picked up slightly, and consistent drips plopped down from the rim of his hood, falling onto his nose. He opened his mouth to speak, to say something, but the woman was sniffling again and shaking her head, raising her gaze to his once more.

"She was never one to properly tell people what she meant," she said. Her frown was somehow both chiding and devastated when she glanced sidelong to the open grave. "She always seemed to just assume that, if she was quiet for long enough, everyone around her would just understand what she needed."

Harry dropped his gaze to his scuffed boots. They were soaked through, he realised detachedly. He should probably invest in some new ones, though he knew he more than likely wouldn't.

"It was what put a wall between us in the first place, her not telling me she was unwell. It was like she expected I would somehow just know."

Harry caught his lip between his teeth but couldn't reply. He wasn't good with these sort of talks. Draco had been, on the few occasions he'd spoken to the families of Harry's visitors, but Harry…

"I guess that was the biggest problem between us. I didn't understand enough, and she didn't tell me enough."

He didn't want to think about Draco. Not at all. He'd done a good job not thinking of him of late, and it was habit to thrust thought of him aside. The thought of someone who hadn't quite been a friend but who Harry missed nonetheless, whose company he'd actually enjoyed, whose simple presence was… was…

"I guess – thank you? I don't really understand, but thank you."

The woman sniffed again, and Harry peered up at her without raising his head. The film of rain between them had become a curtain, masking her face and tapping upon her umbrella with demanding fingers. Harry stared at her as she gazed back at him, her tears still falling, and she raised the note he'd given her between them as if in indication. "Maybe one day I'll understand what she meant."

And then she turned, and she left. Just like that, without properly understanding, she turned from Harry and her sister's grave and trudged through the rain in her sombre black dress and ineffectual umbrella. Such was always the way. The people who were left behind simply had to accept what was given to them. It wasn't like they could demand more. It wasn't like they even deserved to demand more.

Harry stood for a long moment after. With the rain increasingly heavy and battering onto his shoulders, he stood and watched the woman in her solemn black dress and ineffective umbrella as she slipped and tottered through the sludge of the cemetery that wasn't quite snow towards the exit. She looked small, walking all alone by herself, but she still walked. She still ploughed ahead because it wasn't like she could remain behind. Even if she didn't know where she was going, she had to simply go _._

So Harry followed. After a long, long moment, after the woman had disappeared entirely, he followed. The rain that wasn't quite snow either wasn't all that cold – or at least it wasn't to him. And though he could feel the emptiness of the cemetery around him, the isolation of striding through deserted and mostly forgotten headstones, it wasn't so bad. He was used to it, after all.

It wasn't so bad, and Harry kept telling himself that every step of the way as he began his long, long walk home.

~|January 20th|~

It was drizzling outside.

Not a torrential downpour but that ineffective drizzle that seemed to simply leave everything in its wake just a little damp and mouldy. January seemed to be the season for rain that year rather than snow, or maybe Harry was simply noticing it more than he usually did. He was certainly spending a lot of time staring out of windows.

The attic smelled faintly of paint, but not from that recent efforts. Harry hadn't the energy or inclination to lose himself in painting that day, and especially not of the kind that involved simply coating walls in whitewash for future endeavours. He'd woken that morning but not truly woken, and the only possible solution to his listlessness seemed to be… this.

Sitting. Watching. Avoiding thinking and just…

Sitting.

Tiny droplets coated the window beside him. Fog spread just faintly, a product of the Heating Charms placed upon Grimmauld Place by Hermione's attentive ministrations to oppose the frosty chill of winter outside. Was it still winter? Harry was fairly sure it was still winter. He couldn't quite remember what day it was, but he was pretty sure of that much at least.

Everything felt heavy that day. Heavy and far too much effort. It was no wonder that Harry found himself whiling away the hours in the attic when he'd fallen to sleep there the previous night mid-paint. Some days he woke without the capacity to do more. Some days it was easier just to sit. To think in a manner that avoided thinking of other things, or to not think at all.

Thinking and not thinking. It fluctuated. Moments of listless stasis passed in which Harry could only stare at the window, following the incremental decline of a rain droplet. Other moments, however, he thought. Not all of it was bad thoughts, but some… Sometimes he couldn't help but think about the parts that hurt, too.

Harry wondered what time it was, then discarded the thought as inconsequential. It wasn't like he had anywhere he needed to be.

He wondered which room Kreacher was cleaning that day, then brushed that thought aside as inconsequential too. Kreacher took himself where he wanted to go. He had become a sprightly elf in his older years, a fact that Harry studiously strove to overlook. He didn't like to bide on the meaning of that sprightliness.

Harry caught a glimpse of his paint-smeared fingers and pondered whether he should have a shower, should clean it off, then discarded the thought. Why should he? It wasn't as though he needed to be presentable for anyone; his visitors didn't care after all.

He thought about Hermione and hoped she wasn't working too hard.

He thought about Ron and George and wondered how their shop was doing, having avoided Diagon Alley in all but Fred's company for months.

The Weasleys, his visitors, the families he'd met – Harry thought about them all briefly as he lost himself in something of a daze, seated with knees to chest, arms loosely wrapped, and head resting against the attic window. He even let himself think about Draco for a moment as he avoided doing so much of the time.

Those thoughts hurt a little. Or maybe a lot. Harry wasn't quite sure, couldn't quite tell that morning. He felt groggy, somehow sleepy but unable to sleep. A part of him wondered detachedly if that was how Draco had felt on his days abed and unable to move, but the thought drifted by and left him just as the others did. It wasn't relevant. Not really.

At what time a shift edged into the room, Harry wasn't sure. He couldn't tell, couldn't pinpoint it, but it was some time after Kreacher had dropped by with a plate of lunch that Harry forgot about and yet before evening had begun to fall. The change was on a magical level, that much he could feel. He had little enough actual magic left that when it tingled within him he was aware.

The hazy softness of Death magic rose and sighed in Harry's ear, and as it always did, as it always would, Harry felt even his groggy listlessness shouldered to the side to make way for it. If he had a visitor, he would have to help them. It was one of the few things he could still do. Lifting his head heavily from the window frame where it rested, Harry glanced over his shoulder.

"What…?" He frowned. "What're you doing up here?"

No reply.

"You never come up here. What's wrong?"

Still no reply, and not because Padfoot couldn't speak. Harry could almost, almost hear him sometimes, could discern his silent words, but this time the dog was simply a dog. He padded silently towards Harry, head low and feet dragging, almost as though he was slinking into a space he wasn't welcome. That impression as much as anything gave Harry cause to raise his hand in offering.

Padfoot fit his head into Harry's palm, the cool, insubstantial weight of his presence brushing his skin comfortingly. Padfoot huffed a sigh as he dropped onto his haunches at Harry's side. He only sat. He only kept him company.

For some reason, even in his dazed state, that thought hurt a little. It hurt, because Padfoot was there. It hurt because he, just like James and Lily, were still here and Harry couldn't help them move on because he didn't know how. It hurt because he knew he didn't want them to, and that realisation might have been at least part of the answer to the question of their presence at all.

Visitors remained until their goal was complete. Harry didn't want to think that Padfoot was stuck because his own goal wasn't, but…

"Sorry," Harry said, his voice choking slightly. Swallowing didn't do any good with vanquishing whatever clogged it. "I – I'm sorry."

Padfoot only huffed again. He sat, and he waited, just as Harry needed him to. And though it helped, the company being sorely needed, in many ways it was the worst thing he could have done.

~|January 31st|~

Harry was cradling a cup of tea as he climbed the stairs from the basement kitchen when he felt it. Pausing in step, he glanced up, drew his gaze around him searchingly, and blinked at the visitor abruptly appeared in.

"Hello," he said, smiling in greeting. "It's been a while."

Fred lounged upon the bottom step of the stairwell just as he always did. He raised a hand, waving lazily, before beckoning Harry towards him.

"Sorry 'bout that," he whisper-said when Harry obligingly drew alongside him. "I should drop in more often."

"You don't have to," Harry said with a shrug.

"No, I should. Can't have Sirius one-up me in the visiting department. He still pops around, right?"

Harry nodded, then shrugged again. Between Padfoot, Lily, James, and each of his other visitors, visitations that had been growing increasingly frequent in the past few weeks, Harry didn't really have the time for loneliness. Or at least not that kind of loneliness. Hermione's visits still somehow seemed to be the only thing holding him afloat in that department, but Harry didn't need to tell Fred that.

"I'm sure you've been hugely busy," Harry teased, and Fred grinned in reply.

"Actually, I have to admit that it was probably more Malfoy who was a bit of a deterrent." Fred scrunched his nose. "You know, when he's around it makes it less appealing to drop by."

"Really?" Harry asked, ignoring the ache he felt whenever thoughts of Draco were triggered.

"Yeah. Or something like that. I don't know, makes it feel weird to intrude upon your space and all when there's someone already here."

Harry raised his tea to his lips to give himself a moment to think. He'd considered that. How could he not? Visitors oftentimes overlooked social etiquette and spoke to him or demanded of him when he was in the company of people who were alive – Fred was a primary example of that with his family – but by and large, they didn't tend to appear quite as often when he was with someone else, another visitor or otherwise. Harry wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not.

Shrugging again, he spoke as nonchalantly as he could. "Well, you don't have to worry about that so much anymore."

Fred cocked his head. "Huh? Why not?"

"Draco's not here anymore."

"What?"

"Yeah, he's gone."

A frown rapidly descended on Fred's brow. "Gone where?"

"Home," Harry said with another sip of his tea. It felt scalding in its heat, but that was likely more a product of his incessant coldness than the actual tea itself. He focused on that so he didn't have to think about anything else. "His dad got out of Azkaban and all that, so he was alright to head off."

Fred stared at Harry as his face slackened into an expression of surprise. Harry wasn't quite sure why he would be; Harry himself certainly wasn't, for it made sense that Draco should leave with his father's freedom provided to them. But still.

"What?" he asked.

Shaking his head, Fred slumped back against the stairs. "Nothing. I guess it's just unexpected."

"Why?"

"Because it felt like he was going to stick around here for a while, that's why."

Harry paused with his tea resting against his lips. "What does that mean?"

Fred shrugged a little awkwardly, as though an itch were scratching at his back. "Nothing much. I can't really explain it except that I can just feel it sometimes. Like when you feel people around and know not to pop up too often or whatever. It just felt like he was going to be here for a bit, so I stayed away."

Rendered mute, Harry couldn't only stare at Fred. Fred was one of the chattiest of his visitors, and not just of those who actually spoke to him. It seemed a by-product of his real self, and one that Harry was usually grateful for. He'd missed Fred over the past months, though his absence could have been construed as a good thing. It wasn't like Harry necessarily wanted him to be stuck around, after all.

Fred was always the one to let little things slip, too. Harry didn't want to know any more about Death and what happened after, what kept some visitors here, and how the magic worked, because it felt like it was drifting into taboo territory. How much knowledge was too much? Death was such an unchartered region that the prospect of actually understanding it a little was terrifying.

But Fred let those little pieces slip out, and his 'feeling people' was one such slip. Harry might have suspected that he could do just that but he'd never considered it in so many words.

It took a bit of a struggle to set the thought aside, but Harry eventually managed. Shaking his head, he took a deliberate sip of his tea. "Whatever. What's up, Fred? Just the usual?"

Fred was still frowning a little, but at Harry's words, he too shook himself from his thoughts and straightened from his reclining sprawl. A smile, his usual smile that wasn't happy but wasn't quite sad either, spread eagerly. "If that's okay? That'd be great."

"Of course it is, Fred," Harry said, because it was. "Of course it's fine."

Diagon Alley was back in the full throughs of raucous activity by late January. It was still bitingly cold – Harry knew even if it didn't quite hit him as it should have – but the Heating Charms radiating from shop fronts and the packed bodies of shoppers in the mid-morning frenzy was enough to deflect the worst of it from those most affected. Harry pulled his hood low, kept his head bowed, and followed in step with Fred as he wove the familiar route towards Weasley's Wizard Wheezes.

It had been a long time since he'd visited. Months, even, because Fred was right on that count: something had kept him away just a little bit. Even if Harry hadn't wanted to help him, hadn't wanted to do this for Fred, he would have. How could he not, when it had been so long since they'd checked up on George?

It had been a long walk between stations and along streets to reach the Leaky Cauldron, but Harry didn't mind. He strode with purpose through the back room of the pub, enough of his magic remaining outside of the clutches of Death magic that he could tap the bricks and slip into the magical marketplace beyond. Navigating the cobbled roads, they drew towards the vibrant shop that was still one of the most visited in all of Diagon Alley.

Harry paused across the road from the store. The building was unsurprisingly identical to how it had been. Its glass windows were cluttered with stock, demonstrations and displays in every corner. The door was constantly swinging to make way for its stream of customers. A stray firework – or perhaps it was intentional – skittered from a top window to explode in a muted performance that drew the eye of every passer-by.

It was unchanged from how it was. Utterly unchanged. Until Harry caught sight of George.

It could have been chance that had George stepping out the front the moment Harry and Fred drew to a stop barely a road's breadth away. It could have been chance – or it could have been some twist of fate that was both cruel and kind.

Harry felt Fred freeze at his side as much as a spectre of the dead could. He felt his breath catch as it didn't need to, because Fred didn't even have to breathe anymore. From the shadow of his hood, the oversized jumper that Harry always wore because stepping outdoors was asking to be recognised and he'd never wanted that, Harry watched him stare at his brother for a long moment. Then he turned his gaze towards George himself.

He couldn't blame Fred for staring. He couldn't blame him for the way his mouth flopped open and his eyes widened. He couldn't possibly be blamed for the roiling emotions wreaking havoc upon his pale, freckled face, clambering over one another in a demand to be heard as much as dying just slightly for what it meant.

Because there, across the packed road and before Weasley's Wizard Wheezes that was as populated as ever, George was standing. And smiling. And, from the way he all but ran towards Angelina Johnson and wrapped her in a bear hug before planting a sloppy kiss on her lips, Harry didn't think it was much of a stretch to discern why.

George was happy.

"He's…"

Fred's voice was quieter than a whisper at Harry's side, but Harry heard him nonetheless. With a tear that felt like ripping plaster from skin, Harry dragged his gaze back towards Fred. He felt himself cringe slightly at the sight of him.

Fred's eyes shone. His bottom lip trembled ever so slightly and his face contorted. All the time, with every visit, Fred would posture and joke. He would make light-hearted comments and speak with companionable comfortableness. He was happy himself – or at least he pretended to be. Not around his family, though, because he couldn't be happy in those moments. Those times, Fred was as heartbroken as those he'd left behind.

This time, the heartache was still apparent, but Fred was happy. He was hurting, but he was actually happy. Harry could feel it radiating from him as thickly as he could the magic that bespoke his deadness, and that feeling ached as much as it felt utterly wonderful.

"Fred," Harry began, reaching for him.

"He's getting better," Fred whispered. He sighed something that wasn't quite a laugh, and his lips trembled even more as they spread into a smile. "Harry, he's getting better. He's got – he's got Angelina, and – and he's got his shop, and… Harry, I think he's actually going to be alright."

It was painful to watch Fred's face, so Harry turned to Angelina instead. George was slouched against her, his arm slung around her shoulders, and he was grinning ear to ear at something she was saying. Even with the street as packed as it was, the people between them choked in a thick bottleneck, Harry heard the moment George clearly pulled a joke and Angelina burst into snorts of laughter. George joined her moments later.

"He is happy," Harry found himself murmuring. It was a realisation as wonderful and sad as Fred had sounded.

A sob arose at Harry's side and he glanced back towards Fred. He'd never seen him cry before, and in an instant was blessedly relieved he would only ever witness it once. Fred was happy, was relieved, but it was still horrifying to see.

"That's good," Fred said, nodding slowly and then with more vigour as he seemed to convince himself. "That's really, really good. If George can get better, then – then they all can, so…"

Tears fell, transparent and insubstantial, and Harry could only watch. Just as he could only watch as Fred wiped his face, smiled waveringly towards his brother, and sighed wispy, "Finally."

Then he started to fade.

There was no goodbye, but there rarely was. Fred didn't even seem realise what was happening, lost in his staring as he was. In that instant, though Fred was just that little bit different to the rest of his visitors, he seemed just a little more similar, too. They all looked like that when they left. Relieved and yet sad. Happy, but regretful that they would be passing for good.

Fred faded. He faded, faded, and with barely a parting sniffle, he disappeared. The empty space left beside Harry had never really been filled, but it yawned with Fred's absence nonetheless.

Harry swallowed thickly. He hunched his shoulders to his ears and dropped his gaze to his feet. He couldn't look towards George, towards the shop, towards the joy and recovery anymore. It felt almost a crime to do so when it was all such a picture of happiness and he felt so completely other.

"Goodbye, Fred," Harry murmured. His voice caught, hitched, and it was a wavering struggle to release. His eyes burned, and no amount of blinking seemed to do any good in relieving the sting.

After that, Harry left Diagon Alley. He made the long trek back home once more, and this time it was entirely alone. Harry had to remind himself every step of the way that his aloneness was a good thing.

* * *

A/N: I have the strong suspicion I'll be posting the next couple of chapters in quick succession. I hate leaving it miserable!  
Nonetheless, despite the misery, I hope you like it :) Let me know with a review if you get the chance!


	15. Chapter 15 - Face Down

**Chapter 15: Face Down**

There were some things that Harry didn't think he'd ever be able to accept. Not enough to forget them.

The war against Voldemort was one of those things. He couldn't possibly forget the disaster it had wrought, the pain and anguish it had left in its wake that still persisted years later. It was a horror too great to be swept under any rug.

At the other end of the spectrum, however, he wouldn't be able to forget the Weasleys, even if it was impossible to overlook that he couldn't have them anymore. Ron, Ginny, Molly and Arthur – they had all been Harry's family, and even though he'd destroyed what was between them out of necessity, for Fred, he couldn't fully accept the dissolution of what they'd shared. He couldn't forget them.

That the Ministry of Magic was warped and Harry wanted nothing to do with them. That the _Daily Prophet_ was just as much, and Hermione's updates in the past months regarding the paper's abrupt shift to supporting the VLF's tentative struggles didn't make up for the fact that they were biased gossipmongers that would drop the organisation in a heartbeat. The loss of his magic, too, even as it grew more refined in Death magic, or that the world would likely never accept he could see, communicate with, and attempted to help people who had already died.

Many things Harry wouldn't accept, couldn't move past, and couldn't forget. Too many to count, even. One more of those was the very act itself of suicide.

Draco had become a sore spot. What had happened to him – it had been close. It was made personal in a way that didn't require even a friendly basis to strike a horrifying blow. It didn't matter that Harry had thought about it, had talked about it with James, and had even mentioned it in passing to Draco. It was still something he couldn't accept, let alone forget.

The girl that Draco had first helped Harry with – he would always remember her, too. She'd been his first visitor who had – or who had definitely – been a victim of suicide. It had been a whole new kind of horrifying to see the aftereffects, the aftermath of what had happened, and to consider the lasting impact of what might have seemed a necessity for her. Forgetting that would be as impossible as forgetting Draco.

The second visitor who was a similar victim… He wasn't as young as the first. His family weren't mourning the loss of a teenager so much as a son and father. But that didn't make it any better.

Harry had suspected that the stout man with heavy eyes and a pleading expression was the victim of a similar death as the girl's had been. There was something about him, about the way he held himself, perhaps, that seemed an echo of what he'd seen before. That suspicion was made only firmer when Harry followed the man through the crisp February evening towards an isolated bridge and to have him point to the water below.

The bridge wasn't unused, but the area was clearly little-known. The traffic three blocks away was far from silent, and Harry could even make out the chatter of pedestrians a little closer, the barked voice of someone bellowing into their phone. He glanced warily in the direction of that traffic; not two days ago he'd been recognised by a cluster of wizards, and despite his lack of public appearances but for that before Christmas, it had raised something of an excitable witch hunt. Or maybe his absence had exacerbated the excitement; Harry wasn't sure.

But no one was in sight. Not for that moment. The simple little bridge arcing over its narrow man-made channel was empty but for Harry and his visitor. The river itself looked deep enough, was wide enough, that it would require a struggle to swim to reach the nearly vertical edges. Only a rusted ladder, a marked distance from the bridge, provided an escape. It was a set-up for disaster is someone fell in.

Or jumped.

Stepping up to the edge of the bridge, Harry curled his hands over the railing. It wasn't a tall railing and would have been little challenge to climb over. He peered down into the water coursing below, swirling at a slogging pace, before turning towards the man at his side once more.

"What do you need me to do?" he asked.

The man leant against the railing at his side. He similarly peered over the edge with solemn eyes before slowly raising his gaze to meet Harry's. "Can you… help me… get it?" he whispered.

When he spoke, spoke actual words, Harry could hear him well enough. That was a change, and one that Harry had noticed increasingly of late. Not only had his magic, his proper magic that every witch and wizard possessed, declined to next to nothing, but his Death magic seemed to have grown. It had become sharper. Harry could hear at least a word or two from every one of his visitors now. He could sense the moment they arrived in Grimmauld Place and was sometimes even dragged from sleep before they stepped into his room. He was closer to them, and he couldn't quite decide whether that was a good thing or not.

What was definitely not good was that, for whatever reason, Harry could feel the Death on those around him. It wasn't always something fatal, but he could feel it. He could tell at a glance how old a passing woman was, or with an unconscious tingle of magic that a man was afflicted by a cold. He could feel the heavy weight of deterioration sagging shoulders, or sickness weakening steps, marking time like an hourglass dribbling sand into nothingness.

Harry hated it. If anything, it made avoiding everyone, not just those of the Wizarding world, all the more necessary. Harry didn't like Death, hated how it clung to those around him, even if it was inevitable. Everyone died, after all.

Mostly.

Harry just didn't want to have anything to do with it. Not any more than he was already fully immersed in it.

Tugging at his hood that, as always these days when outside, he kept firmly tucked around his face, Harry leant over the railing once more. "What do you need help with?" he asked.

"I need…"

"Yes?"

"I… dropped it."

The man's whisper was so quiet that Harry could barely hear it. He glanced at him sidelong to see the man wringing his hands as he too stared down into the man-made river flowing beneath them. No, not wringing his hands. He was –

"You dropped your ring," Harry said with a sigh, watching as the man gesturing in a circle around his finger once more. "Of course. Your wedding ring, maybe? Was it a family heirloom or something?"

The man peered at him sidelong, nodding slowly, and Harry sighed once more. He'd gotten relatively good at discerning unspoken words when he couldn't hear his visitors at all. Gestures and written notes, following a pointed finger or a beckoning hand. Little twitches and glances that seemed to speak almost more than words could manage at times.

The man at Harry's side was tugging at his ring finger insistently. It was so obvious that Harry could hardly believe he hadn't noticed it in their walk to the bridge. Closing his eyes briefly, Harry dropped his forehead onto the railing smeared with drizzle that had blessedly ceased for the moment. Not that it meant all that much in the long run because…

Because the man had dropped his ring. He'd dropped it into the river when he'd killed himself. And Harry had to get it for him.

"Alright," Harry said, more to himself than to the man. "Alright, then. Don't worry. I'll get it for you."

"You… will?"

His whisper was almost disbelieving and yet achingly grateful nonetheless. The words were broken, as though the man hardly knew how to speak at all, but they were flooded with crackling emotion. Harry glanced towards him once more to see his hands clutching the railing as though they weren't insubstantial at all. As if, in the mere time they'd taken to walk to the bridge, he'd somehow gained just a little more presence. His face, so sagging and heavy, tightened with desperation.

Harry would never understand that. He'd never understand how a ring from ancestors could mean so much. Enough that someone would linger in the throughs of Death before passing on. But then he'd never really had anything like that. Not from his own parents. Maybe that made his confusion something wrong with him? How could he possibly even think to understand? Harry couldn't discredit another's feelings and experiences just because he didn't understand. He'd learnt that much over the past months especially.

That thought convinced him if nothing else. Harry had known he would do it, but it was that thought which urged him to clamber up the old, creaking railing and sling his leg over the edge. Had he the magic to find it, a simple retrieval charm would have been far preferable. An _Accio_ , or at least something to locate it.

But Harry didn't have that. He had to make do. So he perched on the edge of the railing, leant forwards to frown at the slowly churning water beneath him, and took a steadying breath. "Okay," he said, once more as much to himself as his visitor. "Okay, I'll get it. You can just… you can stay here, and I'll get it for you."

Then Harry pushed himself from the railing.

The fall was fast. Then it was cold. A splash, a crash, and water sprayed before swallowing him completely. That first splash was biting, tore Harry's breath from his lungs, and felt even more so because Harry wasn't used to the cold. He was always cold himself, so this – this was a shock.

It struck him, instantly flooding his clothes and dragging at his shoes, and Harry was momentarily frozen. Then his heart kicked back into gear, thundering in his ears as they too flooded with water, and he was shaking and clawing through the water to the surface. Breaking through in a gasp, it was only then that Harry realised.

He'd made a very poor choice indeed.

The channel looked slow. It looked sluggish and lazy in its manmade confines. In reality, as the current swept around Harry's legs and dragged him with invisible, clutching hands, it was anything but. Harry splashed at the surface, but it was only for a moment before that current dragged him briefly under once more.

 _Shit_ , was the only thought that made any sense. That, and something like momentary fear that was swept aside as quickly as Harry was tumbled through the water. He was spun head over heels, was allowed a moment of relief to scramble to the surface, and then was forcibly shoved under once more. Splashing strokes did nothing. Kicking did even less.

Such a simple river. So seemingly harmless. Harry should have known better given that a man had clearly _died_ there, but he hadn't… he hadn't thought…

 _And that's the problem. You never think anymore._

The bridge had disappeared. Harry noticed that only as a passing thought. The cement walls, sloped and rising like a canyon on either side of the river, were glimpsed only in passing in the moments he hauled himself to the surface. The ring. The ring was what Harry was supposed to look for, supposed to retrieve, but he barely even thought of it.

The fierce currents. The moments of gasping for breath before the vicious flow dragged him under like a Grindylow clinging onto his foot. Breathlessness, the cold, an upwelling of exhaustion that Harry hadn't even been aware was waiting on the edges of his detached mind for the chance to leap forth – it overwhelmed him.

His arms felt heavy. He lost his glasses with a firm dunking. He gasped and spluttered, but it didn't seem to give him enough air. How long had he been in the water? Harry didn't know, but as he was tugged under the surface once more, his jeans and jumper sodden and heavier by the second, he hadn't the care to think about it. Everything just… stopped. Fear wasn't there. Not anymore. Not when a moment of clarity reminded Harry of one very simple fact:

He had nothing to be scared of. Nothing at all, even in the freezing, violent embrace that threatened to tear him apart. After all, what had he to lose?

He caught a passing glimpse of a ladder embedded in the wall, but it was dragged away before Harry could even think of making for it. The slap of chilling water struck his face, deafened his ears, but he hardly felt it. Sucking in a gasping breath that was more water than air, Harry dragged a sodden arm out of the water in a half-hearted stroke, kicked his feet diligently.

And then he stopped. He stopped as a whirlpool grabbed a hold of him and tossed him like a ragdoll. Because the current dragged him under once more. Because he couldn't bring himself to care anymore. He stopped because he had visitors to help, a house elf to come home to, but little else, and for a long, long moment, it wasn't enough to keep him struggling.

Without consciously intending to, Harry let himself sink beneath the surface and didn't struggle more.

* * *

The first thing that he noticed was that he was strangely warm. Strange, because Harry was never really warm.

The second was the paradoxically hard softness beneath him.

Then the beeping. The smell. The distant sound of footsteps and murmured voices. And finally, as he cracked his eyes open, glaring white light that assaulted his eyes like needles stabbed into his most vulnerable places.

That light wasn't really abusive. A moment of squinting, blinking, and more squinting discerned that, if anything, it was rather dark in the room Harry found himself in. It was only from the hallway, through a doorway propped open to admit sound and illumination, that the light filtered. It was muted at best, though sufficed in highlighting the shadowed planes of the room.

Harry knew where he was. He'd known from the second he'd smelt the cloying sharpness of sterility.

Pushing himself upright, Harry glanced around himself. The curtains were only half drawn around the hospital bed he was in. A monitor, something that Harry only knew the nature of because it was distinctly Muggle, beeped and flared with lights in intermittent spurts that he realised was an echo of his heartbeat. The nightstand alongside the bed, the extra blankets folded on the end, the pair of uncomfortable-looking chairs stationed just so to provide a modicum of seating for patiently waiting bedside company.

Everything was a little blurry, and Harry only realised that it was so for the absence of his glasses when he raised a hand to scrub at his groggy eyes. His head felt stuffy, throbbing with the shadow of a headache, and his fingers too thick and clumsy to function properly. His arms didn't quite move properly, and it took Harry another momentarily baffling moment to realise his inability was as much because of the peg-like device clamped onto his index finger. Another to realise that the discomforting weight pressing thinly against his upper lip was a narrow tube.

Harry knew about them. Unfortunately, experience with visitors and hospitals had made them just a little too familiar. He'd never been admitted to one himself though, and it didn't take much of a stretch of recollection to recall how he'd gotten there in the first place.

Sighing, Harry wiped heavily at his eyes once more. He didn't know how he'd gotten to the hospital or who'd helped him, but that didn't matter. He should leave as soon as he could. It wasn't like he really needed to be here. Regardless of what his rescuer had thought or perceived, he hadn't been in any real danger. Even if he had drowned, there wasn't anything wrong with that.

Harry should leave. He should. He just couldn't quite work up the energy to sling himself from the juxtaposing hard softness of the half-reclined hospital bed with its poor excuse for pillows.

Which was why, some insurmountable time later, Harry was still in bed when the light flooding through the door was momentarily disrupted by an incoming figure. He glanced towards them, and even with his blurry eyes he could discern who it was.

 _Not her. I didn't want her to have to see._

But she was there. She'd seen. And from the tightness of her expression, the heaviness of her eyes, she'd speculated upon the situation or heard enough of why Harry had been admitted that she'd drawn her own conclusions. Yet even with that obvious deduction, she only sighed as she stepped into the room.

"Harry," she said, more an acknowledgement than anything.

For a moment, Harry had to look away from Hermione. In her faded slacks and jumper, she'd clearly been dragged from comfortable peace to his bedside, possibly at the behest of a phone call from whoever had managed to scrounge some ID from his pockets. It wasn't fair. She had so little time to spare, so little time to herself. She shouldn't be spending that time racing to a hospital that Harry didn't even really need to be in.

But she was. Most likely outside of work hours, and just as likely in the middle of the night if the darkness of the room was any indication, Hermione had appeared because she'd been told he needed her. She always came. It was almost as though she couldn't help herself, and that compulsiveness stung fiercely.

Hermione shuffled into the room, edging to Harry's bedside, but she didn't take a seat. Instead, she simply stood and stared down at him and, after a moment, Harry raised his gaze to meet her own. God she looked so tired _._

"I'm sorry," he found himself saying before he'd even had the thought to do so.

Hermione's lip trembled slightly before she managed to catch it between her teeth before it progressed to far. For a moment, she seemed to struggle with herself. Then she took a fortifying breath, made a procedure of digging around in her pocket, and extracted a familiar pair of glasses.

"Here," she said. "I know you find it uncomfortable not being able to see properly."

Accepting the offering as more than just glasses – because it meant something, that Hermione not only knew just how discomforting Harry found it but that she'd made the effort to fetch them for him – Harry slowly slipped them onto his face. His hands flopped into his lap limply a moment later, and silence hung between them.

Hermione was, naturally, the one to break it. "What happened, Harry?"

Taking a deep breath, Harry released it in a sigh. "They didn't tell you?"

"They made assumptions," Hermione replied. She waited for a beat before seeming to correctly deduce that Harry wouldn't extrapolate for her. "I'd rather hear it from you."

Harry raised a hand and raked it through his hair before it snagged on the oximeter clamped to his finger. "What did they tell you, Hermione?"

Hermione pursed her lips. In the darkness, it could have been an expression of disgruntlement, but Harry knew better. He knew he'd scared her, and the thought was as exhausting as it was shameful. "Someone found you in the River Thames just on the banks at nearly seven o'clock last night. They said you were… that you weren't breathing," Hermione's breath hitched slightly but she ploughed on. "They thought you were dead. When the paramedics arrived on the scene, they managed to revive you, but…"

Hermione's swallow was audible, her throat convulsing with the strain of it, and Harry had to lower his eyes. "But they took me here even though they revived me?"

"London Bridge Hospital," Hermione said, her voice tight for a moment before she cleared it. "They said they thought you might have fallen in and gotten caught in the current, which apparently isn't as unlikely or as uncommon as it seems." She paused, then shifted slightly closer towards Harry. "That's what they said, but…"

Harry knew what assumption she'd made. He knew, and not only because she'd made just such assumptions in the past. Curling his fingers into the linen blankets in his lap, Harry licked his lips before replying. "I didn't."

"Harry –"

"I didn't jump in to… to…" He pressed his lips together. Not that. Never that. "I wouldn't do that, Hermione."

Hermione seemed to sag in place, a motion Harry felt more than saw, but it clearly wasn't from any kind of relief. "Then why, Harry? Why were you in there in the first place?"

He glanced at her sidelong. "It was –"

"Why didn't you get yourself out?"

"I didn't –"

"I know your magic's sporadic these days, but surely it could have –"

"No," Harry said quietly, interrupting Hermione this time. "No, Hermione. It couldn't have."

Hermione stuttered to a stop. "What?"

"My magic," he said. "I can't. Hermione, I can't do things like that anymore. I can't do anything."

Hermione's muteness wasn't wholly silent. The paling of her cheeks spoke words of its own. "What?"

Harry sighed, scrubbing a hand through his hair once more. "I can't do magic I want to anymore. It seems to have become more focused or something. It's sharper, I think, and I don't –"

"Sharper?"

Hermione's voice was hushed, had a desperate edge to it, and all but demanded an explanation. So Harry gave it. "I can see people better. And hear them when I could never hear words before. And other things. It's become… sharper."

"People?" Hermione echoed, only to have comprehension dawn almost immediately after she spoke. After all, she'd always been smart. "You mean your…?"

"My visitors," Harry said with a nod, and pretended he didn't see the pained expression that tightened Hermione's eyes.

"Harry," she began.

"I know you don't believe me, Hermione," he said wearily. He felt tired. Exhausted, even, and that exhaustion was abruptly realised as something that had been dragging upon him for weeks. Months. Years, even. How hadn't he realised it? "I know you don't, and that's fine. I'm just telling you my side of the story."

A war seemed to wage across Hermione's face as she visibly fought with herself. Her hands, reaching for the blankets tucked into the side of the hospital bed, clawed briefly before deliberately releasing. "I'm trying to understand," she whispered.

"I know," Harry said.

"But I just can't."

"It's alright. I wouldn't expect you to. I don't expect anyone to."

"But we should," Hermione said. "I don't know if it's… if it's…"

"Real?"

"- r-real, but I'm trying, Harry. I really am."

"I know," Harry said, reaching gently for her hand. He didn't clasp it, simply touched it for a moment, but Hermione seemed to sag further for that brief contact. "It's alright, Hermione. Really, it's fine."

Hermione raised a hand to scrub at her eyes. She wasn't crying – or not yet – but the gesture was telling both of her own persisting weariness and the strain of their situation. Guilt reared further within Harry once more.

"Your visitors, then," she said with a huff. "They're involved in this?"

"Sort of," Harry said.

"How?"

"I was trying to help one of them."

"But how? How could jumping into the river help them?"

"Because they asked me to."

There was no point in trying to explain it, and Hermione clearly understood that from the heaviness of her ensuing sigh. With a slump, she sunk into the chair at Harry's beside and leant heavily into the hard back. Harry watched her, watched as she mulled over his words or perhaps the situation at large. The machine at Harry's bedside continued to beep, and the passing murmur of voices outside the door bespoke passing nurses.

Eventually, Hermione seemed to reach a conclusion. She spoke quietly but with cadence that bespoke consideration of her words. "They'll try to keep you here for a while. The Muggle doctors. And it might not be a bad thing."

 _It is for me,_ Harry thought, because he knew it was. Being in a hospital around so many sick and dying people… with his Death magic kicked up a notch, it would be even worse. He could already feel the pervasive cold scratching at his magical senses, the scent thickening in his nose, as his grogginess retreated.

"I think they'll have to ensure that there's no lasting damage, though the nurse I spoke to said you seem remarkably well given you were so, ah… not well before."

 _Of course there's no lasting damage,_ Harry thought. _There never will be, because I can't… because I don't…_

"You were pronounced temporarily dead, Harry," Hermione said, and her voice warbled slightly as she spoke. The hand scrubbed over her eyes this time was telling in that it was accompanied by a sniff. "They have to… for medical reasons, they have to monitor you."

Harry didn't say anything. What could he say? That it was pointless? That there was truly no reason to monitor him for damage, for the possibility that he had 'nearly died'. Harry knew that, even if no one else in the world did, because there was one more secret he'd never voiced and didn't think he could for the fear it instilled within him.

Just as Kreacher seemed to have grown sprightlier over the years, and just as Death magic seemed to wear off upon those around him, Harry knew he wasn't unaffected. And this, the drowning, the dying…

How could Harry possibly tell Hermione that he didn't think it was possible for him to even die?

He didn't say that. He shared a brief conversation with Hermione before weariness stole over him much as he saw it overwhelm Hermione in turn. He urged her to head home, all but pushing her from the room in a sea of reluctant words, but she did eventually leave when he appealed to her logical side.

"What could possibly happen to me, Hermione?" Harry asked, wiping at his own eyes as they grew increasingly heavier by the second. "I'm in a hospital."

"Not everyone can watch you all the time," Hermione replied quietly.

"No. But I don't need to be watched."

Hermione's lips pursed. She seemed to chew over her words for a moment before replying, and when she did, it was in a rush, as though to deny their possible truth. "You didn't try to kill yourself, did you, Harry?"

The thought hurt. It hurt because Harry hated the idea of suicide. He hated it even if something of a kind might have, maybe just for a time, afflicted him in the past. He hated it even if something like it, something echoing it, had overwhelmed him briefly as he'd sunk beneath the water of the man-made channel. He hated the thought of Death, even if the thought that he might never die terrified him even more.

 _If I tried to kill myself, would it even work?_

He shook his head. "No, Hermione. I didn't."

Hermione didn't look convinced. Not at all. But eventually she did bow her head to the logic of hospital authority and, with a brief moment spared to wrap Harry in a squeezing embrace, she took herself from the room. A final, weary glance was spared over her shoulder before she disappeared.

Harry didn't wait for a nurse to enter and take her place. He couldn't spare that long, even when the weight of exhaustion dragged at him all the more with every passing second. He was out of the hospital bed, climbing into the folded clothes placed precisely on the nightstand alongside, and was stealing from the room before anyone could stop him.

The weight of Death and sickness that wasn't his own nipped on his heels, and Harry all but fled into the night. Not that it did any good; that particular scent of magic would always follow him.

* * *

A/N: This is a bit of a short one BUT I'm quite literally hating this angst at the moment (I want it gone!) so I'll likely be posting another chapter really, really soon.  
See you soon!


	16. Chapter 16 - Dragged Forth

**Chapter 16: Dragged Forth**

Hermione was angry, of course. Or upset. Or maybe a mixture of both.

But that anger and distress wasn't enough to shame Harry into returning to the hospital. That evening, when Hermione stumbled through the Floo into Grimmauld Place, he received a firm scolding, was magically thrown into bed, and told not to leave. Hermione only resisted charming him into his bed until she could return the next day because he convinced her it was pointless.

"I'll just tell Kreacher to let me out," Harry said as he climbed from his bed. "Please, Hermione. Don't do that."

Hermione opened her mouth to protest, but she must have seen something in Harry's face, because she closed it again almost instantly. With a huff, she planted her hands on her hips where she stood in the doorway, frowned at Harry firmly, and pinned him with a stare.

"You will not push yourself today," she said curtly.

"Yes, Hermione," Harry replied with an obliging nod.

"No gallivanting about."

"Okay."

"Kreacher will tend to anything you need, so try to stay in bed."

"I –"

"And make sure you call me if you need anything."

"Hermione, I –"

"I'll be back this afternoon." Hermione raised a hand and a pointed finger, her eyes narrowing. "Mark my words, I will be."

Harry understood what she meant by that. That she would return. That she would keep watch of him. That she would make sure he was alright, because she didn't truly believe he was. Which, all things considered, Harry couldn't really blame her for. Was he alright? He was alive, but otherwise he wasn't quite sure.

But Harry ducked his head in another nod and, under Hermione's watchful gaze, dropped down onto the foot of his bed. He raised his hands in placating defeat. "Alright," he said. "I won't do anything."

Hermione didn't look convinced, but she did leave. With a nod of her own, another long moment of staring at Harry, she turned and strode from the room. In her eventual absence, Harry sagged until he was draped over his knees, hands hanging to the floor.

He closed his eyes, teeth sinking into his bottom lip. _She's too good to me_ , he thought, arms wrapping around his calves. _She's been too good to me for years._

Harry regretted that he caused Hermione to trouble. He regretted that he was an extra burden upon her when, between work, the VLF that was finally getting somewhere, and everything else, she had so little time to simply stop. He hated that he'd made her worry, had upset her, and that he'd all but dragged her to Grimmauld Place that morning because the thought of staying in a hospital overnight was too much for him.

But there was little he could do about it. Years ago, Harry had asked if Hermione felt uncomfortable remaining his friend when he was estranged from the Weasleys. He'd asked if she wouldn't prefer to leave him alone too. Her reply had silenced any future questions on the matter.

"Don't you dare think that, Harry Potter," she'd said, eyes swimming with tears. "Don't you dare think so little of me that I wouldn't still be your friend."

"I wasn't –"

"I'll always be here for you," she'd said fiercely. "Haven't I always been?"

She was right. Harry hadn't needed the crushing embrace she'd engulfed him in to know that. She had always been there for him. Everyone else, whether through death or otherwise, had left. Some Harry had deliberately pushed away, but some of them…

Even so, despite the guilt of going against Hermione's words, he couldn't always abide by them. Not always. When the niggle of Death magic arose that morning, it was only with a touch of regret that Harry pushed himself upright and glanced to his side.

"Where are we going today?" he asked the Puppy Girl.

"Not far," she whispered around the thumb in her mouth. She'd started speaking a little while ago too, though always around her pseudo-pacifier. With barely a murmur, she raised her free hand, latched onto Harry's, and drew him to his feet.

That was different, too. Once, Harry wouldn't have felt more than a brush of cold. Now, like a demanding wind, the dead little girl physically pulled him from the room. Harry followed, and he would have followed even if he hadn't wanted to. Even if his weariness from the previous day hadn't still weighed inside on him.

It was mid-morning by the time he returned home. Mid-morning, and yet to Harry it felt like nightfall or later. He was heavy, weary, dragging his feet with every step. The previous day and the night escaping from hospital seemed to have fully caught up with him. It was with slow steps that he turned from the thin traffic of the wider street into Grimmauld Place, and just as slowly that he trudged up the steps towards the front door.

He didn't hear anyone approach him from behind. He didn't hear the footsteps, and only detachedly registered the sharp, muttered curse uttered only a second before his shoulder was grabbed. In a violent spin, a crash that had him slammed into his front door, Harry was spun towards his assailant. His legs nearly gave way to a downward slide, buckling beneath him.

His surprise only redoubled when he blinked up at Draco standing before him.

Harry blinked. "What… are you…?"

"What the bloody hell are you doing?" Draco snapped.

For a moment, all Harry could do was stare. He stared up at Draco, barely keeping his feet, and he couldn't look away, because Draco – he looked well. Better than he had months before when Harry had last seen him. Better than he'd been for the entire time he'd been at Grimmauld Place. Draco looked – was – far better.

He'd filled out from his gauntness. His face wasn't quite so pale. The blankness that had so often hooded his eyes had distinctly retreated, and the absence of expression was replaced by a curled lip, a twisting scowl, and the slightest flare of nostrils that was so reminiscent of his teenage self that Harry was slapped by the nostalgia. Draco looked well, but mostly, _mostly_ …

 _What is he doing here?_

Harry struggled to straighten from where Draco pinned him against the front door with a hand on each of his shoulders. He didn't manage so well, Draco's hold unyielding, but Harry attempted nonetheless. Words spilled forwards before he could help himself. "Draco, what are you doing here?"

"Answer my question," Draco snapped back.

"You're supposed to be at home with you father."

"I said –"

"You're looking better, but Lucius shouldn't be alone. He needs –"

A firm jostle silenced Harry's words. Draco's lip curled so far that it almost seemed to climb up into his nose. His eyes narrowed. "Shut up for a second. Just – just shut up."

Harry closed his mouth. He pressed his lips together and instead sunk back into the door behind him. It wasn't because of Draco's words that he did so. Not in the least. Rather, when he considered it, Draco's hold on him…

His fingers trembled slightly, and Harry didn't know why. He didn't know what was wrong, but something had clearly happened. In an instant, almost as though it had never been, Harry thrust his weariness aside and trained his attention upon Draco. Draco looked well enough, better than well, but something had shaken him. Something was wrong, and even if Harry knew he shouldn't be here, knew he couldn't be around Draco anymore for Draco's own good, he would help. He would do his utmost to ensure Draco was alright.

For himself, Draco had his eyes closed. He was breathing deeply, a frown making a mess of his brow, and he seemed on the brink of shattering from his wavering composure. It was strange to see this side of Draco. Harry only knew two of him: the boy he'd been in school, and the worn, exhausted man he'd become and who had been something of a friend to Harry, if only briefly. This Draco was different again. This Draco, for all of his struggle to collect himself, seemed somehow a mixture of the two.

Harry didn't know what that meant to him exactly, but it didn't really matter. He didn't know what Draco was to him, what he could do for him if he couldn't be his friend, but he didn't want him to be distressed. Was he grieving? No, it didn't seem to be that. Was he sad? No, it wasn't quite sadness, either. It seemed almost like…

"Draco, what is it?" Harry raised a hand to latch onto one of Draco's wrists. "What's wrong?"

"You," Draco said.

"Tell me, what's wrong with –?"

"You _,"_ Draco repeated emphatically, and only then did Harry realise he was actually answering him. "You are the fucking problem."

Harry's voice failed him. All he could manage was a stuttered, "What?"

Draco pried his eyes open. He raised his head to pin Harry with a stare, eyes narrowing, and once more jostled him just slightly against the door. "What the bloody hell is wrong with you, Potter? After everything you said, everything that you always raved about, you go and do that _?_ "

Blinking, Harry shook his head slowly. "What are you talking about?"

"You," Draco said for the third time, his voice wavering with the ferocity of that single word. "After telling me I was supposed to live and find a purpose, how dare you go and try to kill yourself?"

Harry's eyes widened. "What? No, I –"

"You told me," Draco interrupted him. "You told me that I couldn't do that. That it wasn't fair to everyone who was left behind, and even if I didn't realise it, people would care. So how dare you."

"Draco, I –"

"How dare you think you could do such a thing. What were you trying to accomplish? What did you think would happen afterwards?"

Harry's hand tightened on Draco's wrist. "No, Draco, I didn't –"

"What about Granger? She was nearly in hysterics, did you know? Flooed me this morning to demand that we get over whatever 'tiff' was between us because you needed someone around." Draco almost spat his words, and his fingers diging almost painfully into Harry's shoulders. "She was upset. And you did that to her."

"Draco, stop."

"After everything you told me, everything you made me do –"

"Draco, _stop_." With a sharp tug, Harry wrenched Draco's hand from his shoulder. It wasn't to step backwards, not to draw away from him, but instead in an effort to draw his attention. It worked, if only slightly. For a second, Draco eyes darted to where Harry held his wrist aloft, and that second was all Harry needed.

Guilt rose within him – for making Hermione worried enough to call Draco, for making Draco angry – but he thrust it aside as he spoke as quickly as he could. "I wasn't. I wouldn't do that, Draco. I couldn't." _And for more reasons than you could ever imagine_. "It was an accident, and Hermione misunderstood. I'm sorry that she called you when she was worried. It was with good intentions, but it was unnecessary."

Draco dragged his eyes back to meet Harry's. He stared at him for a long moment, and Harry couldn't unravel the play of emotions before him. It was made less understandable by the abrupt thinning of his lips, the way his hand, captured in Harry's, balled into a fist.

It seemed to take a herculean effort for Draco to draw a deep breath. His shoulders were stiff, his jaw tight, but he eased both slowly and seemed to calm slightly with it. A buffet of cool wind whisked around him, slapping Harry briefly on the face, but Draco didn't seem to notice.

"Granger said you were in hospital," he finally said.

Harry nodded. There was no point in denying it. "I was."

"People don't just wind up in hospital, Harry."

 _Harry_. Somehow, the use of his name eased Harry in turn. He hadn't even noticed that Draco had called him by his surname until he didn't anymore. It dampened his discomfort just a little. He didn't want Draco to hate him, even if it would be easier for them both that way.

"I know," he said. "As I said, it was an accident."

"Granger said you nearly died." Draco's hand tightened in its fist so tightly that it trembled slightly, and Harry thought for a moment he might actually intend to punch him. If he did, however, he restrained himself to continue. "She said you fell in a river, and that whoever pulled you out had to call the Muggle hospital and revive you."

Was there anything Hermione hadn't told him? Harry bit back on a momentary flare of resentment. Hermione had been scared, that fear arose because of what Harry had done. Why she'd taken herself to Draco and asked for his help he didn't know, but that she had done said something.

Harry felt his shoulders sag, sliding just a little further down the door. _What kind of a terrible friend am I that I'd do that to her?_ It felt like he was always making trouble for Hermione in one way or another.

"I didn't nearly die," Harry said quietly, dropping his gaze to his feet. "That's the part that Hermione got wrong."

"She said you'd –"

"She was wrong," Harry said. "I didn't nearly die. It was just an accident, a bit of a slip, and I'm fine now."

"An accident?" Draco snorted so loudly the whole street must have heard him, but he still rolled his eyes for emphasis. "You wound up drowning in a river –"

"I didn't drown."

"- and in hospital because of 'a bit of a slip'? Bloody hell, Harry, if that's the best you can come up with, then –"

"It was a visitor," Harry interrupted him, flickering his eyes upwards, and Draco paused. "A visitor asked me to. I was trying to help him."

It said something of Draco that, despite whatever distress afflicted him, he was quelled slightly at Harry's words. The paleness of his face, broken only by two spots of colour in his cheeks, didn't quite abate, but his scowl lessened into something more thoughtful.

"A visitor?" he asked.

Harry nodded. "He needed me to get them something. A ring. He dropped it in the river when he died."

Though he didn't specify of the nature of the man's death, Harry suspected Draco knew immediately. And yet, even if Draco knew, he didn't speak on the matter. He didn't seem affected by it at all. Rather, instead of considering the visitor, his frown deepened accusingly once more. "So you jumped in?"

"Yes," Harry said with another nod.

"To help him pass?"

"Yes."

"And nearly drowned in the process?"

"I didn't nearly drown."

Draco gave another snort, though this one was less profuse. His hand uncurled from its fist, even if that around Harry's shoulder remained as tight as before. "Just because you didn't mean to doesn't mean it didn't nearly happen, Harry."

He seemed to sag slightly himself at that. His chin lowering, Draco closed his eyes briefly once more and took a long, slightly wavering breath. And Harry – for reasons he couldn't understand, Harry felt the urge to explain.

He couldn't tell Hermione. He couldn't tell a Mind Healer. He couldn't tell Kreacher, even, though Kreacher would be the most likely candidate to confide in who would actually completely believe him. Harry hadn't even mentioned his suspicions to Lily and James; to do so seemed to make it more real.

But to Draco? The urge to tell Draco, to share, was almost irrepressible. Harry wanted to tell someone. He wanted to voice his fears and have someone consider the possibility with him. He wanted to talk, to worry, to attempt to bolster his own flagging confidence, and incomprehensibly, Draco seemed even more of a possible confidant that Kreacher.

Maybe it was because he knew and seemed to accept the truth of Harry's visitors. Maybe it was because Harry had seen Draco at his lowest and it felt only fair to share his own lows. Maybe it was simply that Harry's need welled within him so strongly – so very strongly and with a mounting fear that he hadn't acknowledged since he'd woken in the hospital – that he had to say it.

For whatever reason, Harry found himself speaking before he even knew what he was going to say.

"I didn't nearly drown," he said once more, his voice echoing hollowly in his ears. "I couldn't. It's happened before, and I can't."

Draco lifted his chin and met Harry's eyes once more. The touch of a frown reappeared on his forehead. "What?"

Releasing Draco's captured wrist, Harry slumped eve more heavily against the door behind him. He was tired. He felt heavy. He wanted… he needed… just for a moment, he needed to let it all out. "I don't think I can," he said, raising a hand to scrub at his suddenly burning eye. "Not in any way. I don't think it's possible for me. Since what happened with Voldemort, I've thought about it, and I think… with my magic and affinity with, you know, Death, I think…"

"What the hell are you going on about?" Draco asked.

"Dying," Harry finally sighed, and he closed his eyes. His head rocked back onto the door. "I don't think I can do it, Draco."

Silence met his words. A long, long silence, and all Harry could hear was the sound of the wind, of the distant traffic, of Draco's breathing. No words, though. No words at all.

Finally, with such a huge effort it almost wasn't worth it, Harry pried his eyes open. Draco still stood before him, which, despite the weight of his hand still resting on Harry's shoulder, was somehow surprising. He stared at Harry, still pale, but his face was wiped clean of a frown. Instead he was staring. Just staring, as though Harry was something entirely unexpected and inexplicable standing before him.

Harry didn't want to think about what that meant. He'd been considered crazy by the families of dead people more times in his life that he wanted to remember. He'd had the Weasleys think the same thing about him, and even Hermione at times. Not Draco. Harry didn't want Draco to think like that, even if there was nothing he could do about it.

"You don't need to be here," Harry said slowly, quietly. "I appreciate you coming over when Hermione asked you to, but I don't need your help. You've got enough on your plate, I'm sure."

Draco stared for a stretching moment longer. When his hand flopped from Harry's shoulder, the absence of its weight was stinging for more than just the absence of the heat from his palm. But he didn't step away. Not immediately. Instead, shaking his head slowly, Draco regarded Harry with a slowly deepening frown.

"You're not making any sense," he said.

"No," Harry replied simply. "I rarely do, apparently."

"You…"

"Don't try, Draco. I don't really even understand it myself."

The shaking of Draco's head increased until it was almost a physical snap of his chin. "You're not telling me something."

"What?"

"This?" Draco waved a hand vaguely in the air. "This doesn't make any sense. You have to explain it me."

Harry blinked up at him. He scrubbed a hand across his face once more, fighting exhaustion, but it offered little help. "There's nothing to say beyond what I've told you."

"Bullshit," Draco said harshly. "That's bullshit, and you know it."

"Draco –"

"You don't think you can die? What does that even mean? No." Draco overrode him as Harry began to reply. "No, I'm not hearing that. That's utter bullshit. You're going to tell me everything you've clearly kept from me the entire time I was with you, or so fucking help me, Harry, I'll drag it out of you with magic. Don't think I won't."

Harry stared at him, silenced. There was no leniency in Draco's sharp, unblinking stare. His lips had thinned into a hard line, his eyes narrowing, and his stance was planted like an imposing tree, despite his thin frame. Harry thought he would have better luck moving Grimmauld Place itself than Draco.

 _You should send him away_ , a voice whispered in his head. _For his own good, and for his father's. He shouldn't be here._

Harry knew that. He knew Draco couldn't stay. He knew he shouldn't tell him the whole truth as he knew it either, because such a truth would only raise more questions that Draco would demand answers to. But for that moment, Harry gave in. Just for that moment, he sagged beneath the weight of Draco's demand, and he nodded.

Without another word, Harry turned towards the door and slipped inside. Draco followed silently behind him.

* * *

The clock in the basement kitchen was loud. Or at least that was how it felt to Harry's ears. In reality, that loudness was likely more a product of the surrounding quietness than any particular volume on the clock's part.

The fire flickered silently in its hearth.

The kitchen benches were wiped clean with not a plate in sight.

Kreacher had vanquished himself from the room, so the usual bustle of a working house elf was entirely absent. In its place was cautious stillness.

Harry curled his fingers around his cold cup of tea. It had chilled faster than Draco's, he knew, a product of his unnaturally cold hands, but that wasn't why he no longer sipped it. Instead, staring down into the dark pool of that tea, Harry adjusted and then readjusted his fingers his hold. He didn't let himself think. He couldn't. To think would be to contemplate everything he'd just said, and that was too big. Far too big.

"You can't die."

Harry swallowed. "No. I don't think so."

Another beat of silence. And then, "You've tried to."

"By accident," Harry said. "A couple of times, but only by accident.

More silence, but only briefly. "And you think it's because of your first death?"

"My first near-death, yes." Harry shifted his hold upon his mug once more, fingers fiddling with the handle. "With Voldemort."

Across the table from him, Draco huffed a breath of something that wasn't quite incredulous, wasn't quite a laugh, but was something in between. "Un-fucking-believable," he muttered, likely more to himself than to Harry.

Harry bit the inside of his bottom lip. His couldn't look at Draco. He'd spoken more than he had in days about what he'd never even dared voice, and he felt exhausted on a whole new level. An unprecedented exhaustion, and one riding on the coattails of that which had dragged upon him from the previous day and every day before that.

The fact of the matter was that Draco knew. He knew all of it now. And Harry didn't know how he felt about that.

"So, this Death magic," Draco continued after a moment. "It's absorbed your other magic?"

"Replaced it," Harry corrected absently staring at his tea.

"And it's what allows you to see the visitors? To hear them?"

"I suppose."

"And it's getting stronger, you think?"

"Yes."

Draco took a sip of his own likely lukewarm tea, as though to fortify himself. Harry heard rather than saw it. "And you think that's what's stopping you from dying?"

Harry felt himself sag just a little further. _It's more real. Saying it makes it more real._ "I think so," he sighed. "I don't seem to be able to die. And I think the magic –"

"That it rubs off on other people," Draco finished for him. He gave another little huffing laugh. "Un-fucking-believable."

Draco had changed since Harry had last seen him. He'd changed a lot, in fact, and it made Harry wonder. He wondered how he was dealing with his depression, and how often he still struggled with his Bad Days. He wondered if he was still seeing his Muggle doctor and if he'd managed to find a Mind Healer – or, daresay, a Muggle therapist. Harry wondered as he hadn't let himself as to how Draco was managing with his father returned home, and if it was helping him as Harry had hoped it would.

He wondered a lot of things, and on top of all of that, Harry wondered why he was still here. Draco had said months before that he hated Harry. He'd said it a number of times, in fact, and Harry had believed him. That didn't explain why he'd risen at Hermione's behest. It didn't explain why he'd followed Harry into the basement kitchen and listened to him speak. Was it some misguided sense of duty? Did he feel he owed Hermione for helping his father through the VLF, and possibly even Harry for assisting him at Narcissa's request? Somehow, Harry couldn't see it of Draco. He might not be as much of a git as Harry had previously thought, but that kind of behaviour still seemed a little beyond him.

Tapping his thumb on the side of his mug, Harry stewed over his thoughts for a moment in the silence following Draco's words. He thought, considered, and couldn't help but speak. "It's probably a good thing for you to go," he said quietly. "Since you know now."

Harry heard Draco shift. He heard him lower his tea to the table in a clink. Then his chair squeaked, and Harry was snapping his chin up as Draco slammed a hand into the middle of the table between them. "That was it, wasn't it?"

When Harry met Draco's eyes, it was to find them narrow and sharp, pinning him intently just as they had on the doorstep. Harry frowned. "What?"

"That was it," Draco repeated. "That was why you sent me away, wasn't it?"

Harry leant back into his chair, clutching his mug to his chest. _I didn't want him to know that_ , he thought, momentarily cursing himself. He shook the thought aside with a struggle. "There were a lot of reasons – "

"Really?"

"- like your father needing help," Harry said, speaking through Draco's interruption. "And you needing to get out of Grimmauld Place. It's not exactly a healthy environment, Draco."

"Mm," Draco grunted. "For anyone." His pointedly raised eyebrow left no room for doubting who he referred to.

Harry just as pointedly ignored the unspoken suggestion. "Doesn't your father need you at home?"

Draco pursed his lips. "He doesn't need twenty-four-hour care."

"I'm sure he enjoys your company."

"As a matter of fact, I think we've seen more than enough of one another over the past few months. There is only so much constant companionship someone can have with their father." Draco lifted his chin, straightening from where he leant across the table. "Besides, he's invested in his most recent endeavour. I find myself with rather a wealth of free time and nothing to spend it upon."

Harry tipped his head, confused. "An endeavour?" he echoed.

"He's taken up the baton of my mother's good work, as it were," Draco explained. "The VLF needs someone to step up to the play, and he's doing remarkably well, I should think. The whole VLF is, despite Father's history and incarceration. He's 'had a dramatic about face', or so the _Prophet_ says. Standing up for justice with a remarkable lack of vengeance. It's a little disgusting to read of, really. Haven't you been heard about it?"

Harry hadn't. Of course he hadn't. He avoided the _Daily Prophet_ just as he always had. The only news Harry received was through Hermione, and though she'd made mentions of the VLF and how it had markedly improved in recent months, he hadn't questioned it.

"It's really taking off, then?" Harry murmured, more to himself than to Draco. "I wasn't sure if it would manage, after what Hermione said, but that's…"

Harry trailed off into thought, regarding but not really seeing the mug in his hands. This was good. It was a good thing that the VLF was continuing Narcissa work, because even if some of the incarcerated may deserve what came to them, there were many more who didn't. It would be good for Lucius, too; Harry had heard about survivors of war and what they were left with. He'd heard that oftentimes the mental state of such survivors was tenuous at best. That Lucius had found an outlet, an investment, was good for him. Even better that it was a productive outlet, that it would help people and likely bolster what remained of the Malfoy name.

It would probably be good for Draco too. He would likely be involved with the VLF if Lucius was, and if he was, then the effects were clearly beneficial. Draco looked, sounded, even acted so much more like his old self, had rebuilt a well of his old confidence to such a degree, that Harry couldn't help but think it was a good thing. That in itself was strange; he doubted that, five years ago, he would ever have considered Draco Malfoy returning to anything resembling his schoolboy demeanour a good thing. But this… this was –

"A good thing," Harry murmured.

"But irrelevant," Draco said, and his words dragged Harry's attention towards him. Draco raised an eyebrow, his chin still lifted proudly, and regarded Harry in return. In his casual slacks and jumper, as immaculately groomed as he'd ever been, he appeared every bit the composed young man he should have been. "You're deflecting."

Harry blinked. "I'm what?"

"Deflecting," Draco repeated. "Both from our conversation and from what's really important to discuss. After what you've just told me –"

"You're right," Harry interrupted him, tapping his thumb upon the rim of his mug. "We should talk about what's important." Draco's eyebrow twitched again, rising further, but flattened into a frown as Harry continued. "How have you been, Draco? You seem well."

"Harry," Draco said.

"Are you alright? Are you still seeing Dr. Getz? Have you decided to see a Mind Healer or a therapist too?"

"Harry –"

"It's not really my place to ask, I know, but I did wonder sometimes if you were okay. I guess I didn't really have any need to wonder at all since you seem like you're –"

"Harry, shut the bloody hell up for a second." Slapping his hand down in the centre of the table once more, Draco pinned him with a glare. "I don't want to talk about that. I want to talk about you _."_

"Well, I don't," Harry said, and abruptly realised that his words were the greatest truth he'd ever spoken. He was done speaking of himself and the Death magic within him. He'd had enough. "So tell me instead, Draco: how are you?"

Draco stared at him, eyes narrowing for the umpteenth time that morning. He stared for a long time, and something in Harry's face seemed to convince him that he wouldn't be budged. Huffing a frustrated sigh, Draco plopped back in his chair and pressed his lips firmly together before replying. "I'm doing well, thank you for asking."

"That's good to hear," Harry said, just as formally.

"I have modified my medication as befits my needs under the direction of Dr. Getz and, under her suggestion, have regularly taken to seeing a therapist of her confidence."

Harry smiled slightly. Something like relief eased him just a little. He hadn't known how worried he was about Draco until the moment that worry was alleviated. "I'm happy to hear that, too."

Draco continued as though he hadn't spoken. "I'm working towards normalising my behaviour and deducing potential triggers that drag me down as my therapist Carl has suggested. Journaling has been an irreplaceable benefit, as has picking up quidditch."

"That's –"

"While I'm not a particularly active member of the VLF, I often accompany my father to his meetings." Draco spoke over Harry as though he hadn't said anything at all. "And, as it happens, I've found that such political and activist participation is similarly beneficial to me."

Harry nodded, abandoning any further attempts at speaking. That was good. Very good, even. Harry had missed Draco, had missed his company, and had missed seeing him happy when he'd seen him so vastly otherwise. But this was good, calming, and somehow relieving. Harry thought that he might even –

"So now it's your turn," Draco said abruptly, sharply diverging from his conversation and shouldering into Harry's calming thoughts. "Tell me you made me leave for my benefit, but as much for my father as because you thought I needed to be away from you."

Harry stared at him.

"Why don't you tell me, Harry?"

The tea was cold, but Harry raised it to his lips nonetheless.

"What were you scared of, exactly?" Draco's fingers drummed on the table between them in little twitches of agitation. "That I would shun you for what your magic has become?"

Harry held his silence.

"That I would hate you for something you couldn't control?"

Still, nothing.

"What, did you think I would be scared of the possibility? That your magic would rub off on me and that I might be made –"

"You should be scared," Harry finally said. "The possibility of not dying? You should be terrified of that."

"Says the man who so strongly opposes suicide," Draco said lowly.

"Of course I do," Harry said, and despite his weariness, despite the relief that had risen within him with Draco's words, he felt his hackles rise. "Of course I oppose it. No one should want to die. Death is – is sad, and cruel, and – and it takes so much away from so many people."

"And yet, should magic stave it off…?" Draco trailed off suggestively.

"Of course it's wrong!" Agitation had Harry slamming his mug onto the table. Tea sloshed over the rim. "People shouldn't want to die, they shouldn't be drawn into that – that _escapism_ or however you see it –"

"Escapism?"

"- but what's the point to living if you don't eventually die? What's the meaning of trying so hard and building something if you're not fighting the possibility of it eventually ending? _What's the bloody point?_ "

The words tumbled forth before Harry could stop himself, and for the first time, he acknowledged the true source of his own fear. He'd always known it, but not in so many words. It struck him like a blow to a gong.

 _What's the point? If it just goes on forever and ever, what's the bloody point?_

Shoulders hunching, Harry pried his dripping hands from his mug and curled in upon himself. He felt cold, hollow, and instinctively his legs tucked onto the edge of his chair so he could lock his arms around them. That self-embrace – it helped, sometimes.

Not this time, though. Not this time. The stinging, burning sensation in Harry's eyes rose alongside his upwelling fear, and no amount of blinking seemed able to drive it away.

Draco was silent. Harry only realised that fact detachedly, but he didn't comment on the fact. As Harry struggled to withhold the urge to sniff, smothered the hitch in his breaths and stared at the table before him as he deflated, he could feel Draco's gaze upon him. He was silent for so long, the only interruption the persistent ticking of the clock, that Harry found himself speaking again before he knew what he was going to say.

"People shouldn't have to endure that," he said hoarsely. "Visitors, people who are alive – none of them. People should live, and then they should die when their time's up. That's how it should be. If you, or Hermione, or the Weasleys… if any of you stuck around me and my magic wore off on you…"

Th thickness grew in Harry's throat and he couldn't swallow it down. He couldn't bring himself to look at Draco, instead staring fixedly at the tea-speckled table as his arms tightened compulsively around his knees. It was both a sadness and a comfort when he felt the familiar breath of Death and magic arise, the markedly more solid coldness of James' fingers curl around his shoulder than had been possible years ago. Harry shivered into that touch; that, at least, was constant. Terribly so.

Draco took a loud breath as though to speak, but he paused. He hummed audibly, then paused again. When he finally spoke, his words were so simple they hurt. "You're scared."

Harry twitched. He couldn't help himself. "Of course I am."

"You're scared of not dying."

"Yes."

"Because it isn't, what, right?"

"That's not how life works," Harry said, fingernails digging into his jeans. "People aren't supposed to live forever."

"So you're pushing everyone away so they won't have to endure it alongside you?"

With only a flicker of his eyes, Harry glanced towards Draco, and he found he couldn't look away. Draco wore an expression he'd never seen before, one he couldn't quite discern what it meant. He'd grown pale again. His face was blank, though his eyes a little widened, staring with fixed intentness. His back was rigid, and the way his hands tightly clasped one another on the table seemed to say something that Harry couldn't quite understand.

Lifting a shoulder slightly, Harry shrugged in reply. "Why should anyone else have to go through it too? That's not fair."

Draco didn't speak after that. Not at all. Neither did Harry, for that matter, and it was a strange hour of sitting and staring, witnessed only by the consistently ticking clock. The kitchen remained empty, Harry's tea still cold and spilt, and Draco's own mug lay untouched and cooling before him.

When Hermione arrived – at midday rather than the promised evening – Harry nearly flinched at the sudden, crackling burst of magic from the fire. In a wreath of green flames, Hermione stumbled into the kitchen, dusting herself off even before she'd stepped from the hearth. Her sweeping hands paused mid swipe, however, as she caught sight of the dining table.

In a second, Harry saw her catalogue the situation. She glanced towards him, towards Draco, then back to Harry. Another second later and she was striding across the room towards him. "What is it?" she demanded. "What's wrong?"

Harry shook his head, attempting a smile despite the tightness in his cheeks which all but forbade the possibility. He hadn't even realised his arms were shaking slightly where they hugged his legs brutally tightly until Hermione dropped a hand onto his wrist.

"Nothing's wrong," he said. "We're fine."

"Fine," Draco echoed, barely audibly.

"Fine?" James said at Harry's shoulder where he'd been since he'd appeared. Harry didn't glance towards him.

Hermione didn't seem to believe him. She glanced once more back towards Draco, then returned her gaze to Harry. "What happened?" she asked, more slowly this time.

Harry opened his mouth to reply, but Draco slipped in first. That was different to how he'd been months before. Then, when he'd first arrived, he'd barely more than glared at Hermione before retreating into silence. This time, he spoke with all of the surety he should have possessed then, too. "We've talked," he said. "And discussed things."

"Discussed things?" Hermione said.

Draco nodded. He switched his gaze towards Harry. "And we've reached a decision, I think."

Harry frowned. He could almost feel Hermione do the same at his side. "A decision?" she asked.

Draco nodded once more. "I think it would be in our best interests if I return here for a time. Both to assist Harry in his recovery and to escape my father's enthusiasm. You'll understand, of course, Granger."

Harry's breath caught in his throat and he nearly choked. "W-what? Draco, no –"

"I think that would be the best option for everyone involved," Draco continued. "Unless you disagree, Granger?"

"Draco –"

"You'd be up for that?" Hermione said, disregarding Harry to peer curiously at Draco. "You think you could manage it? I know Lucius has become something of a force to be reckoned with of late –"

 _A force to be reckoned with?_

"- but if this is just a means of escaping his single-minded company then I'm sure we could work out something else for you."

Harry could only stare between them both, stunned, as Draco shook his head. "No. I believe that this would be mutually beneficial for both myself and Harry. And to you, Granger; I'm sure you'd appreciate not being run off your feet more than you already are."

"It's no trouble," Hermione said, but a slight smile was touched her lips. She was… happy? Relieved, even? Something in her face seemed to have eased since Harry had seen her that morning, and he could only stare dumbfounded at that, too. "But it would be a help. Definitely."

"Then it's settled," Draco said, nodding curtly. "I'll still visit the manor every day, if that suits, but I believe moving back into Grimmauld Place would be a feasible solution for all of us."

At his side, Harry heard Hermione release a sigh of breath, but he couldn't turn back towards her. His attention was completely focused upon Draco as horror mounted within him. "Draco, you can't do that."

"I can't?" Draco said flatly.

"After everything I just said, you can't –"

"On the contrary, Harry, I believe that's all the more reason to do so." Draco sniffed, drumming his fingers on the table. It seemed less agitated when he did it this time. "Let me make decisions for myself, if you would."

"But –"

"And let yourself be looked after for once." Draco speared him with a stare that seemed to hold deeper meaning than the simple surface value of his words. "You've done more than enough of that for everyone else, don't you think?"

That weight swelled in Harry's throat once more alongside a return of the burning in his eyes. He swallowed thickly, sunk a little into the weight of James' hand, and lowered his gaze.

It wasn't right. It wasn't right to do that to Draco, to expose him to the potential threat of Death magic, any more than it was to do the same to Hermione. Harry couldn't allow it, should put his foot down, but just for a moment…

 _I want it so badly,_ he didn't quite let himself acknowledge, and whether it was Draco's company specifically, the companionship of anyone at all, or the thought of letting go and allowing himself to be 'looked after', Harry wasn't sure. But he wanted it. Whatever it was, he wanted it sorely.

Just for a moment, Harry couldn't bring himself to put up any more of a fight. Later, perhaps, but now? Not anymore.

* * *

A/N: Phew. Okay, that feels like a much nicer place to leave it for a brief respite. I promise I won't leave the next update for long, but I'll probably be slowing in my back-breaking pace a little.  
So... Thoughts? Ideas? Comments or suggestions? I'd love to hear anything and everything, and thank you so, so much to the absolutely lovely people who have taken the time to review already. You've given me that little bit more incentive to speed along, so thank you!


	17. Chapter 17 - Walking In Step

**Chapter 17: Walking in Step  
**

"Go home."

"No."

"Draco, please –"

"Harry, if you attempt to restart this conversation, I'm going to magically silence you. You won't be able to do anything about that, now, will you, what with your magic being as it is?"

Harry sighed. Standing in the doorway into Regulus' old room, the room that used to be Draco's and still sort of felt like it was, he folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the frame. Within, Draco had taken himself to the very centre of the room and was taking a slow turn on the spot. His expression was serenely blank, yet Harry couldn't help but think there was a sea of thoughts welling beneath the calm surface.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

Draco didn't glance towards him but continued his turning. "I'm looking."

"At what?"

"My room." The way he said it sounded so natural that Harry barely even registered the possessiveness of the words. "I'd expected you to have changed it after you kicked me out."

"I didn't kick you –"

"Don't deny it, Harry, you kicked me out." Draco turned his head slightly towards the window and the alcove where Harry usually sat. "I didn't want to leave."

Harry sighed again. Draco had been going on about it for hours. The whole day, ever since Hermione had left, he'd reminded Harry again and again that he was staying, that Harry wasn't going to 'kick him out' again, and that he would stick around for as long as he wanted to, thank you.

"It's not safe for you," Harry had argued as soon as Hermione left.

"Not safe?" Draco had replied. "Your magic isn't dangerous, Harry, regardless of what you perceive it can do. Besides, you don't even know if your speculations are correct."

"You should be at home with your father," Harry had attempted as Kreacher began to dish out a particularly sweet spread of lunch.

"My father is more than capable of looking after himself these days," Draco had replied, readily helping himself to the spread. His motions were so casual, so familiar, that it was as though he hadn't been gone for months at all.

"Grimmauld Place isn't a comfortable place for you to live," Harry had said.

"Oh, but it's comfortable for you?"

"It would be easier for everyone involved if you stayed away," Harry had tried again.

"Easier for you _,_ maybe. I happen to think otherwise."

And finally, "Why would you even want to be here? That doesn't make any sense, Draco."

"Isn't that obvious?" Draco had said as he'd climbed the stairwell towards his room barely minutes before. He'd glanced over his shoulder towards Harry. "Because of you."

Harry hadn't known how to reply. Three stairwells and a hallway later and he still didn't. Draco wanted to be in Grimmauld Place? Because of Harry?  
It didn't make sense.

 _He used to hate me_ , he thought, silently shaking his head. That much was a fact that Harry knew with utter sincerity. Even if he hadn't after a while, Harry had still forced Draco to do what he hadn't want to do. Like visiting the doctor. And eating. And getting up.

And leaving.

That was the part that Harry couldn't quite comprehend. What part of his leaving had been so objectionable to Draco? That Harry had forced him into it? That he'd helped Lucius – even if only slightly – without telling Draco's of his intentions first? If anyone should be saddened by the situation, it should be Harry. He was the one who had been left behind. Surely Draco should have been happy.

But he'd chosen to stay. Draco had decided, had planted himself in Harry's kitchen, and had stoutly denied any attempts at getting him to leave. And he was right on one account, at least; when it came to magic, Draco trumped Harry in every area that counted. He was practically defenceless before him, and not only because of a chance Silencing Charm he might throw Harry's way.

Watching Draco from across the room as he stepped towards the window, Harry gnawed his lip in a fit of indecisiveness. He wanted Draco here. Of course he did. He wanted his company as his silent and unobtrusive guest, or his friend, or his ward or patient or – or anything. Harry hadn't wanted him to leave in the first place, but that didn't mean he could stay.

Except that Draco had changed. He wasn't the person he'd been when Harry had last seen him. He'd rebuilt his walls of stubbornness, shrugging into the objectionable robes he'd once worn so consistently, and raised his head in defiance. This was the kind of Draco that Harry had fought against in school. This was the kind that, beneath the weight of his weariness, the knowledge of the pointlessness of their fighting, and his desire to have Draco there at all, Harry was defenceless against.

Draco had Harry cornered. Even if he knew no one, not even Kreacher, should get too close to him, Harry couldn't help it. He longed for it.

But he had to try. He would keep pushing Draco away for as long as it took.

"You can't stay here, Draco," Harry said quietly. "It was bad enough that you were here for so long before. That was wrong of me, to let that happen. But now… It's not safe to let the Death magic affect you. You have to leave."

Draco didn't turn towards Harry. Instead, leaning with his fingers resting just lightly upon the alcove seat, he stared out the fogged winter into the dreary street beyond. "I don't have to do anything, actually," he murmured.

"Draco," Harry began.

"What about you, Harry?" Only half turning his head, Draco peered at Harry sidelong. "You're worried about me? But what about you?"

 _We're returning to this conversation again?_ Harry heaved another sigh. "What about me?" he posed in turn, and it felt as though he'd been speaking those words for a long time. Speaking them, yet not feeling them. What did it matter, after all?

"You're affected by the Death magic, aren't you?" Draco asked

"We've already been through this." _It doesn't matter._

"So that means you'll potentially live forever?"

"Not die. Maybe." _God, if I did…_

"And you'll be all alone?"

Harry shrugged with as much nonchalance as he could manage. "Better to be alone than drag someone else down with me." _Even if it is lonely. Even if it hurts. Even if I want someone, or something, or to be just like everyone else –_

"That's what you want?"

Draco turned slowly on the spot until he was facing Harry fully. His frown was thoughtful, calculating, and Harry wasn't sure if that was a good thing. Rather, he was fairly sure it wasn't a good thing at all.

"It doesn't really matter what I want," Harry said.

"Yes, it does."

"No, it doesn't."

"It does, Harry."

"Draco –"

"Have you ever thought," Draco took a step towards Harry, his arms folding deliberately across his chest and chin rising, "that maybe you should try and look after yourself before helping others?"

It was Harry's turn to frown. "I do look after myself."

"Really?"

"I do." Harry scrubbed his eyes with his fingers, all but dislodging his glasses in the process. Maybe he was overtired, but Draco wasn't making any sense. Or rather, his words were redundant. "I always am. And others are always looking after me."

"Really?"

"Don't do that," Harry said, glaring through his fingers. "Just don't."

Draco's eyebrow twitched, but he didn't repeat his almost taunting word. Instead, he shook his head slightly. "Other than Granger there's no one who is actually making sure you're alright, is there, Harry?"

"I…" Harry trailed off. That wasn't quite right, but he didn't know if Draco would consider his dead parents and canine godfather to be valid inclusions. He'd never spoken of his parents to Draco anyway. He'd never intended to.

Draco nodded as though Harry's silence was answer enough. "Maybe you could let yourself be looked after for once," he said. "Or consider it returning the favour, if you would."

Harry's attention snapped to at Draco's words. "Returning the favour?"

Nodding again, Draco half turned back to the window. His fingers grazed once more in a feather light touch across the seat that Harry had sat in so often. "If you'd like. You helped me when I needed it. Now I'll help you."

Harry didn't like it. He didn't like thinking of Draco sticking around and what it could possibly do to him. Especially with Draco doing so much better, he shouldn't be hanging around anymore than he already had.

But Harry could also understand the feeling of obligation. The urge to do something, to help someone, even though he was all but incapable of actually helping. He could understand the feeling of a debt, as though he owed something, and that something had to be repaid regardless of his own needs and how he felt about the situation. Maybe Draco was like that too?

Closing his eyes briefly, Harry shook his head slightly. "You're really going to stick around?" he said lowly.

He heard Draco shift and opened his eyes to see he'd taken another step towards Harry. The calculating expression had changed, replaced by something that wasn't quite a smile but seemed almost as satisfied. "Yes," he said.

"Until I'm – what, better?"

"Until I deem it, yes."

Harry huffed. Until he deemed Harry better? Even though there was nothing wrong with him in the first place? _Well,_ he thought _, if he sticks around for a while then maybe I could prove that to him._

Chewing on the inside of his lip, Harry nodded slightly, hesitantly. "Okay," he said. "But only until then."

Draco's smile widened. "Until I'm convinced."

"That I'm better?"

"That you don't need me."

Harry blinked. What did that mean? He didn't know, wasn't sure if he'd ever understand what Draco said, how he acted, or how he'd changed time and time again. But he only considered it for a moment before brushing it aside. Draco had always been a mystery to Harry, whether a hated one or one that Harry sorely longed to help. Why should this instance be any different?

Turning from the room, Harry waved a hand. "Fine. Do whatever you want." He attempted offhanded disregard but to his own ears he sounded simply resigned to his fate.

"You're not sleeping in here?" Draco called after him.

Harry didn't slow as he slipped down the hallway. If he did then he might just turn around and return to the room that he's sat in for nights on end, to the bed he's somehow come to share with Draco regardless of not knowing what they were to one another. It felt too accepting to do that, too natural, despite the time they'd spent apart. More than that, Harry thought he might even want to.

Instead, wrapping his arms around himself, Harry hastened away from Draco and into Sirius' old bedroom. He didn't reply to Draco's words and he didn't look back. It was only with the closing of the door that he felt at ease enough to release the embrace his arms were locked in, but distance wasn't enough to have him forget. Not really.

* * *

Draco had changed. Harry was made starkly aware of that fact day after day in those that followed his invasion and subsequent residence of Harry's house.

At first those changes appeared in the obvious areas. Draco had regained the confidence he'd lost with his mother's death – or perhaps from before that. He'd been subdued when he'd first been brought to Grimmauld Place, and though his manner changed over time, it was distinctly different now.

Draco spoke more than he had. He did more. He made more demands, voiced his opinions almost too frequently, and wandered throughout Grimmauld Place as though he owned its halls in a way that he'd never assumed in the months he'd lived with Harry previously. He used his magic more too, and it was a strange feeling to have the house thrumming with something that wasn't Death.

On top of that, Draco appeared to have embraced his objectionable nature full throttle. It had always been there, even when he was at his lowest, but Harry noticed it starkly in the weeks that followed his intrusion. Draco had stepped into his assuming seat and he clearly found himself comfortably settling there.

"It's too dark and gloomy in here," he would say before proceeding to illuminate that supposed gloominess with an ambient charm that made the spots on the painted walls all but shine.

"I'm rearranging my room," he'd said when, after chasing the sound of violent thumping, Harry had all but burst into that room in the morning to find it indeed very much rearranged. "It's better like this."

"Raw sugar is more tasteful for tea," he'd taken to pointing out the particular lack of such over their breakfast, or "you should tell your house elf to mind his tongue when he's working. It's not appropriate of him," and "the record is still playing? I'll send for some of my own to have a change of music for once."

Little things. Lots of little things that were not wholly different to how Draco had gradually become but seemed sharply so with the breadth of his absence between them. Harry was left reeling slightly in the first days of Draco's return.

But it wasn't that which was so notably different.

It was that Draco still saw Dr. Monika Getz and even admitted she was a competent physician. It was that he'd taken to seeing a therapist once a week at her recommendation and that he seemed both weary and satisfied whenever he returned from a visit. It was that he did more, was awake more, and went out more than he ever had in the throughs of his depression and the weeks following.

Draco took himself to see his father every other day, if only for a few hours.

He made a point of accompanying Hermione to the VLF meetings on occasion.

And he came with Harry for each and every one of his trips with his visitors.

In short, Draco had changed. He'd put his foot down. He still had days that weren't quite as vibrant, or that Harry noticed he pushed himself to talk in something of a struggle or took longer to climb from bed in the morning. He still took his medication in the morning with breakfast and no accompanying comment. And he still grew detached at times, his expression sagging with solemnity and gaze distant.

But he drew himself back. By force of will and grappling against the writhing beast of depression, Draco fought back as Harry had never seen him do before. Just as he continued to fight and protest whenever Harry told him to leave.

"No," he'd simply said countless times. Just "no".

"I don't want to," he'd said almost as frequently like a petulant child.

"You can't make me," he'd reminded Harry more times than he could count. And he was right. Harry couldn't make him leave, even if he'd truly wanted him to. Harry knew Draco had to go, that Grimmauld Place was bad for him for more than that it was 'dark and gloomy'. Harry was as terrified of what his Death magic could do as much as he was resigned to whatever fate it intended to wield. But mostly, he was terrified for Draco.

"If you stay," Harry told him, "then it will get you too. I know it will."

Draco regarded Harry with an expression nothing if not serene and maybe a little smug. "We'll see," he said.

 _That's the problem_ , Harry wanted to tell him. _We can't afford to wait and see._

But he didn't say that. He didn't tell Draco again as he knew he should and not only because Harry knew his protests were fruitless. He didn't tell Draco because he didn't want to. Because he knew he should, but he liked having Draco living with him again. He liked that Draco brightened up the rooms with his echoing voice as much as his magic, for he'd taken to calling across the house when Harry absented himself from his company.

He liked that Draco came with him to his visitors' families or to pursue their requests, often silently as he rarely was and in stoic companionship. He liked sharing breakfast with someone again and even found it helped him develop a bit of an appetite that he hadn't realise he'd lost, and he liked the quiet company of a reader in the chair alongside him. He liked that Draco didn't look at him with concern and wariness when he spoke to a visitor but instead simply curiosity. He even liked that Draco was objectionable and stubborn enough to stay by his side.

Harry knew he shouldn't, but he liked Draco with him. He liked his company. He wanted him there, even if it was wrong.

Which was why he couldn't quite bring himself to object when the Puppy Girl appeared in the kitchen at breakfast nearly a whole month after Draco had inserted himself into Harry's house and Draco silently assumed he was accompanying him in their trip.

"Who is it?" Draco asked.

Harry, frozen in the act of buttering his bread, drew his gaze from where the Puppy Girl had appeared at his side, peering up at him with wide, pleading eyes. He blinked briefly at Draco , opened his mouth to reply, and was stalled again as the little girl curled her chilled fingers around his wrist and tugged.

"Hurry, hurry," she said in her hushed, squeaking voice.

"What's wrong?" Harry asked, frowning towards her.

"Hurry, gotta hurry, gotta…" She silenced herself by sticking her thumb into her mouth as she did so often.

"Is it another one?" Harry asked.

She nodded vigorously.

"Is it far?"

She shook her head. "No' far," she mumbled around her thumb. "Gotta hurry, gotta be quick, gotta –"

"Where are we going to?" Draco asked as Harry rose to his feet.

Harry turned back towards him. He too had paused in his breakfast, his thickly creamed scone raised before his mouth but otherwise entirely ignored. He was frowning at Harry slightly, pointedly, and Harry knew what he was going to say even before he said it. He'd done so often of late.

"It's the little girl with the puppies," he said, glancing down at her as she tugged on his wrist once more. "Apparently it's urgent."

"Urgent enough that it can't wait until after breakfast?" Draco pressed his lips together in his tell-tale sign of objection. Harry had grown to recognise it for its frequent incidence. "You're supposed to eat."

"Says the person that used to go days on end eating barely a crumb," Harry said with a sigh.

"Yes."

Harry shook his head. Draco was very good at accepting the darker parts of his past, something Harry hadn't expected of him. Whether it was his family's role in the war, the ostracism that had followed after, or his depression, Draco accepted it. It was admirable in its own way. Or stubborn. Most likely just stubborn.

"I'd rather just go now and get it done with for the morning," Harry said.

"I'm eating," Draco replied, even as he lowered his scone to his plate and dusted his fingers.

"You don't have to come. Actually, there's no reason for you to –"

"Of course I'm coming," Draco interrupted him, rising to his feet. "Maybe this time we'll actually be able to sort out what's wrong with her.

'We'. Draco said 'we', as though it was the both of them. As though it was assumed that they would go as a pair. Just like he called Regulus' room 'his', and the Death magic 'their' problem as easily as he referred to 'their' breakfasts. Harry wasn't sure what to think of that. He couldn't quite rationalise it but to recognise the tightness it always elicited in his chest and the choking sensation that settled in his throat. It made speaking next to impossible, and Harry could only nod obligingly as the Puppy Girl tugged his arm once more and he followed her from the basement kitchen.

Draco followed at Harry's side as they left the house, striding through the biting wind that still carried the lingering edge of winter. Harry's fingers were frozen in the little girl's grasp, but he didn't mind. He was more than used to it by now. He barely felt the cold at all.

"Honestly, why you can't just wear a coat is a mystery to me," Draco said, shaking his head as he tucked his shoulders to his ears with a slight but discernible shiver.

Harry glanced at him sidelong. "I'm fine."

"It's bloody freezing."

"I'm used to the cold."

"I know," Draco grumbled. "Your magic thing."

Harry nodded. He didn't have to explain that so much anymore because Draco knew. Draco had asked and, despite knowing he shouldn't, Harry had told him. Not even Hermione had ever asked him about the finer points of how his magic had changed; she seemed more than a little disconcerted by the whole phenomenon.

But Draco asked. He asked as though he wanted to know, and demanded when Harry told him it would be better if he didn't. "How am I supposed to look after you if I don't know what I'm dealing with?" he'd said.

"I don't need looking after," Harry had replied.

"Bullshit."

"I'm a competent adult –"

"Bull. Shit."

"I can look after myself –"

"You can't."

"I can. Look, I still can't quite understand why you seem to have taken this on board as a pet project." Harry had huffed in the face of Draco's stout objections. "Draco, there's no point. Why do you even bother?"

For all of his pushing, Draco hadn't let himself be shoved away. Harry wished he wasn't so happy about that fact. It wasn't a good thing, was dangerous for Draco, but he couldn't bring himself to hate it.

"If you'd even just allow me to cast a Warming Charm on you it would satisfy both of our dilemmas," Draco was saying as they took a turn three blocks from Grimmauld Place and started down a narrow street.

"Our dilemmas?" Harry shook his head. "The thought's appreciated, but it's pointless."

"Pointless?" Draco said, arching an eyebrow.

"Hermione tries every now and again. My magic just sucks it up faster than the warmth can be produced. I'd need a constant furnace to actually manage to get warm, I think."

Draco frowned. "Has that gotten worse since before Christmas?"

Harry shrugged a shoulder. "Maybe. Probably. It seems to be doing that in a whole heap of areas lately."

Draco didn't reply. If anything, his frown deepened and he seemed to sink a little further into thought. Chin tucking, all but glaring at the footpath before them, he followed in step as Harry was led by the Puppy Girl to her latest victim.

It wasn't far. She'd been right in that regard, which was somewhat unusual for her. The distance perception of a five-year-old was dubious at best at times; Harry had been led on numerous 'not far' adventures that had chewed up his whole morning in the past.

But this one was short. Four streets from Grimmauld Place and the little girl picked up her step, all but bouncing as she ran towards one of the stately terraces lining the road. The typical sea of grey clouds rolled and swirled overhead, the wind whispering as it slipped down the road and buffeted them, but the street itself was all but empty. Harry bowed his head and allowed himself to be dragged after her.

The narrow stairwell leading to the front doorway of house number eighteen was speckled with damp patches from the morning drizzle. The terrace that loomed over the Puppy Girl watched through curtained eyes, hooded and detached, as disregarding of their presence as the girl was of the house. She all but disappeared behind those stairs as she released Harry's hand to drop to her knees.

Harry followed after he, absently shaking his freed fingers from their frozen stiffness. He paused just behind her as he caught sight of her puppy lying alongside the brick wall of the stairwell. He could just hear her whispered crooning that months before she hadn't been able to utter at all.

"Another dead one," he sighed.

"How do you know?" Draco asked from his shoulder. "You can tell just from looking?"

"Mm." Harry took a small step towards the puppy and the little girl. "And feeling. Sort of more feeling. It hasn't got any life in it anymore."

The little girl turned wide, pleading eyes up to Harry, sucking demandingly on her thumb as her other hand grasped one floppy ear of the dead dog. A puppy, it was, and a pathetic sight at that. Too young to have died. Too thin and worn and exhausted to have lived. There didn't appear to be any injuries upon its hide; nothing besides neglect and the sinking retreat into starvation. A smudge of mottled brown in the shadow of the stairwell, it had curled pitifully upon itself in its final minutes.

"Too young to have died," Harry muttered to himself, because he could feel that, too. He could feel the age of the creature, even after death, and that Death had taken it too soon. That it could have lived longer if it had just… if it had only…

"Please," the little girl said, her voice warbling. "Fix her."

"I don't know if I can do that," Harry said.

"Do what?" Draco asked.

"Have-ta fix her," the girl said awkwardly around her thumb, tugging one floppy ear with insubstantial hands that didn't budge it even slightly. "Can be fixed. Fix her."

"It's not that simple," Harry said.

"What isn't?" Draco asked.

"She's no' gone long," the little girl said, her eyes widening and welling with tears. "Fix her?"

Harry hated that. He hated when his visitors cried, even if the tears were as insubstantial as their hands. There was something so painful, so unfair, about their continued suffering after death. Sighing, knowing he would try even if it was pointless, Harry nodded. "Alright. I'll try."

He was only detachedly aware that Draco follow a step behind him as he sunk into the shadow of the stairwell and dropped to his knees alongside the puppy. Closing his eyes briefly, fortifying himself for the touch of Death, he reached a hand towards the dead dog and grazed his finger over her flank.

A tingle of cold. A sucking, grasping, swallowing leach that sapped what little life remained in the feeble, exhausted body before him. It twitched and shuddered, dragging that echo life into nothingness, except…

"Still warm," Harry murmured to himself, his fingers curling into the puppy's skin that held just a lingering edge of warmth to it.

"Fix her?" the Puppy Girl asked.

Harry swallowed. This part he wasn't good at. This part he couldn't really do, hadn't ever been able to quite manage until recently. But maybe… just maybe, if he was fast enough…

Squeezing his eyes more tightly closed, Harry pressed his hand flat against the puppy's flank and dipped within himself. He couldn't use magic anymore. He hadn't, not for a very long time, but he would try. He'd try damn hard if it meant he could help the little girl who had been with him for months, if he could fend off Death just a little bit. Just this once.

Harry grasped and dragged at the coiled knot within him of _some_ thing. Some cold heat that burned and flickered with icy fire and trembled beneath his grasp. This wasn't his old magic. This wasn't anything like it had been when he'd used a wand, or when he'd been able to Apparate, or even accidental magic. This was something else. Something that was his.

It was the only good thing he'd ever had from the Death magic. The only part that was useful, that gave anything of worth _._

Harry dragged it forth as if hauling an anchor from a sea bed. Dragging it up through the freezing water, he crouched in stillness and silence, coaxing it forth. It quivered down his shoulder, his arm, like a tentative, nervous tremble, and flexed his fingers as it flowed through them.

Then it surged forward with a life of its own. There was no control. It was a tap turned on and let to erupt explosively. Coursing through Harry's arm, it sprung from his fingers and, with eyes that weren't really his eyes, Harry saw it snap and flip, spiralling into the deflated little body before him.

It billowed. It blossomed. Then it snagged like a fish on a baited hook and Harry felt the magic catch.

Opening his real eyes, Harry blinked at the puppy before him. The puppy that didn't quite move but he could see, could feel, like anyone else with a spark of life within them. That spark grew, flickered into a candle of flame and then an upwelling flare of fire, and a leg kicked just slightly. Her nose twitched. Her chest stuttered beneath Harry's hand and he felt struggle with life physically as well as magically.

Harry had never done that before. Not really. Not properly. Somehow, without quite knowing how, he'd suspected that it might be possible. Some innate feeling of understanding had whispered of potential, like the knowledge of being able to breathe, to blink, without consciously doing so or deliberately practicing. But Harry had never tried it before. He hadn't been prepared for the relief he would feel when it worked.

"Blessed Merlin," Draco breathed behind him.

Harry didn't get the chance to reply to Draco. He didn't even get the chance to turn from the puppy with her breath shuddering and her limbs twitching with renewed life, for the Puppy Girl was upon him before he could retract his hand. She was a weight that she hadn't been when she'd first visited him, her arms latching onto him and wrapping around him in a freezing, desperate hold. Harry felt himself shake with the force of her trembles.

"You fixed her," she whispered into his shoulder, her voice muffled by his coat. Her fingers dug into his arm where she clasped him. "You finally did it."

She didn't need to explain her words. Of Harry's visitors, she'd been one of the most persistent. One of the most enduring. That a child so young could be so desperate for something that made little sense was impossible to understand – or maybe it was because she was only a child.

Harry still didn't know why she'd longed for him to save a puppy so badly. He didn't ask her and he never would, just as he'd never asked how she'd died, or why anyone else asked for him to save a box from a pawnshop, or hand a bouquet to an elderly neighbour, or write a note that held little more than a handful of words. After all, the why didn't really matter.

Looking down at the little girl as she pressed her face into his shoulder, at the puppy where she twitched to life as her breathing gradually evened, Harry knew he didn't need to know. He never did. The relief he felt from the little girl, the nameless little girl who had asked of him so desperately time and time again, was enough.

As the puppy rolled open her eye, as Draco caught his breath behind Harry in a hoarse curse, the little girl finally raised her head. She didn't look at the puppy again. She didn't look at Draco either. Instead, she affixed her wide eyes upon Harry and peered at him with the solemnity of someone far above her age.

"Thank you," she said. Whispered. Breathed, even if it wasn't quite breathing. Then, with a hint of a smile, the first Harry had ever seen of her, she faded.

The feeling of the Puppy Girl's grasp around him lingered, and Harry was momentarily frozen within it. He didn't move, couldn't look away from the empty square of footpath where she'd disappeared from, and could barely even blink. It was sad. It was always sad, as much as it was relieving and somehow almost happy. That little girl… Harry hadn't even known her name, but he'd known her, and…

A huff and pathetic little whimper finally dragged his stare towards the puppy. She was still lying on her side, still prone, and her breath stuttered slightly, but as Harry turned his attention towards her she pried an eye open again. Her eye rolled towards him even if her head didn't rise, and seemingly against her will, her thin whip of a tail attempted a feeble thump against the ground.

The little girl leaving had hurt. It would likely always hurt, and Harry felt it as a heavy weight in his chest even as the weighty presence of her Death in his company was finally gone. But the little puppy, the puppy that had been dead but was somehow coaxed back to life – somehow that was enough to drag Harry from his bout of wistful mourning.

He leant forwards and, with tentative hands, eased the puppy into his arms. He hadn't wanted a dog, regardless of Padfoot's unspoken suggestion, and certainly hadn't been looking for one, but it was impossible to think of doing otherwise. The puppy was a tiny thing, barely a weight at all, and she flopped heavily against Harry's chest as he tucked her against him and rose silently to his feet. Only then did he turn towards Draco.

Just like the Puppy Girl, Draco wasn't looking at the dog. He stared at Harry, his expression unreadable in all of its twitching eyebrows and mouth opening and closing. He took a breath, paused, then took another.

"What was that?" he finally managed

Harry dropped his gaze briefly towards the puppy tucked against him. She blinked at him with sleepy dark eyes, her mottled nose skewed against his shoulder but apparently uncaring of that fact. Harry felt more than saw her tail wriggle in another attempted wag.

"The Puppy Girl left," he said simply. "I guess she finally got what she was looking for."

"She's gone?" Draco asked slowly.

Harry nodded. "Yeah. She's gone."

"For good?"

"Yes."

"And you can tell that for sure because…?"

Harry had explained it to Draco before, but he didn't mind repeating himself. After all, it didn't make all that much sense to him either. He shifted the puppy in his arms, pressing the little body against him, and almost felt himself smile despite the pain of his visitor's passing. The puppy was warm. She was actually warm enough to drive away some of his constant chill.

"She faded," he said, scratching idly at the puppy's rump with the hand that cradled her.

"Right," Draco said, just as slowly as before. "This was what she wanted, then?"

Harry shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe."

Finally, after another long moment of staring at Harry, seemingly unaware of the havoc the wind was making of his usually refined hair, Draco turned his gaze towards the puppy. He shook his head slightly. "That wasn't what I was talking about, actually."

Harry dropped his gaze down towards the puppy and felt her tail wag at his attention once more, her groggy eyes blinking sleepily. "Hm?"

"That dog."

"Yes?"

"It was dead."

 _But not anymore_. That thought was almost warm enough to drive away the constant chill nestled in Harry's chest. _She was dead before her time, but I was able to call her back. Does this mean that I could do it again? If Death comes too early, could I…?_

"She was," Harry murmured. "But now she's not."

Draco exhaled sharply, his breath clouding before him. "You did that."

"Yes," Harry said.

"With magic."

"Yes."

"That's impossible."

Harry pursed his lips. Twisting his arms slightly, he managed to raise a hand to stroke the puppy's forehead, scratching between her ears. They were slightly lopsided, he noticed. It was a little strange, a little different, if only in the best kind of way. "Probably," he acknowledged.

"I thought you couldn't do magic?"

Harry shook his head. "I can't. Unless it's this kind, apparently."

Draco exhaled heavily once more. He shifted slightly, half turning in place, and a glance towards him found he was shaking his head. It seemed less in denial than incredulously, however. When he caught Harry's eye, a rueful sort of smile twisted his lips. "You're really something, you know."

Harry tipped his head towards him. Something? "What do you mean?"

But Draco had clearly dropped the subject. He turned his regard down to the puppy in Harry's arms instead. "You're keeping it, then?"

"Her," Harry corrected. "And yes, I suppose I am."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that."

Draco sighed, though it was with a different kind of heaviness this time. "Why am I not surprised?"

Harry frowned. "What do you mean by that?"

"You seem to have a saving-people problem, Harry," Draco said. "Or a saving-things problem."

Harry's frown deepened. He'd been told that before what now seemed so long ago. "I don't think it's really a problem, wanting to help people who need it."

"Yes, you wouldn't."

"What's that supposed to -?"

"Well, shall we, then?" Draco interrupted, tipped his head down the street in the direction they'd come. "If we're going to take care of this puppy for the long haul, it'll need a place to sleep, and the necessities. I've never had any interest in dogs, personally – they're terribly dirty things, you know – but it is to my understanding that they have a certain wealth of equipment to care for them, so…"

Draco kept talking but Harry hardly heard him. He was caught, and not by Draco's words. It was the meaning of them. The meaning of those seemingly offhanded words and what they promised.

Draco was making intentions. He was speaking about the long haul. It was almost as though he was assuming that he would be around for that 'long haul' that he'd mentioned so offhandedly. Harry shouldn't have let his delight, his desperate longing, unfurl as it did, but he could barely withhold it.

Draco should go home, but…

He should leave so that the magic didn't affect him, but…

"You said you'd stay until I got better," Harry said, interrupting Draco's spiel. His arms clutched tightly around the puppy. "How will you know when I'm better enough for you to leave?"

He wished he could bite back the words as soon as he'd spoken them. They sounded desperate, almost pleading, and Harry didn't want that. He didn't want to hang off of Draco and hold him back, weighing him down, tying him to life with Death magic in a way that was less of a gift and more of a horrifying by-product of what Harry couldn't control.

But regardless of what he knew he should want, Harry understood himself. He knew he wasn't able to let Draco go. Even if Draco left, he would still be the only person who'd forced himself into Harry's company regardless of how much Harry pushed him away. Not even Hermione could manage that, no matter how much she tried. Hermione had her own life, her own distractions. She hadn't the time to shoulder her way into Harry's.

But Draco had. Draco had stuck around, at first because Harry had forced him to, then because it had become habit, and finally because he'd decided to come back. Draco had actually come back. The thought was enough to bring unwilling tears to Harry's eyes that he struggled to blink away.

In the cold street, lathered by that thick, persistent wind that wasn't quite freed of Winter's chill, Draco fell silent and stared at Harry. He stared for a long moment before he flicked his gaze briefly to the puppy slumped laxly in Harry's arms once more. With a shuffle of his feet, a shift to shove his hands into the pockets of his jacket, he puffed another sigh that emitted a vaporous silver cloud between them.

"To be honest, Harry," he said, each word breathing more tendrils of white, "I don't know if it would ever be okay to leave you alone."

Harry's fingers dug into the puppy's bony rump. That was wrong. That was so, so wrong, but – "Ever?"

Draco puffed another breath before turning on the spot. "Unless you kick me out again? Unlikely." Then he tipped his head indicatively and began to stride along the footpath in the direction they'd come. "And even then, that's not exactly a done deal, now, is it?"

Harry stood for a moment in his wake. Ever was a long time. A long, long time, and Harry knew Draco couldn't possibly have grasped the completeness and complexity of that word. Harry himself had only managed to rationalise it over years of dawning realisation, the kind of realisation that he would be around for that long, long time whether he wanted to be or not.

Draco hadn't realised that yet. He might have muscled his way into Harry's company, taking up residence at his side, and even been the one to choose to do so, but he didn't know what that meant. Not really. And Harry would have to convince him eventually what a sorry situation that would be.

But not then. Not at that moment. Just for that single moment, another moment that Harry realised he was allowing himself far too often of late, he bathed in the possibility of not being along.

Tucking the puppy under his chin, feeling the little creature tremble as it burrowed into the collar of his jacket, Harry hastened after Draco. He pretended he didn't revel in Draco's very presence at his side as he walked, the sidelong glance Draco gave him that he didn't quite return, or the way he felt warm in a way that Death magic couldn't steal from him, but he wasn't fooling anyone. Not even himself.

* * *

Padfoot left him after that.

It happened as he and Draco drew along the road towards the old Black house. The wind had picked up in fervour, buffeting with a vengeance, and Harry picked up his pace more in deference to the puppy curled against his chest than his own discomfort. She was still tucked against him where she'd fallen asleep with only the snuffles of her breath and her sleepy little whimpers indicating she was still alive at all. At his side, Draco strode with a shrunken bag of knick-knacks hanging from a single finger, swinging exaggeratedly with every step.

They argued as they walked. Or argued as much as Harry could be bothered to argue. Draco's objectionable nature had renewed his own inclination, and he more than made up for Harry's lacking. He seemed to take every opportunity to do start a debate he could.

"Why does it even bother you?" Harry said with a sigh for the umpteenth time in the past hour of their shopping.

"Because it's a necessary measure to be taken," Draco said, just as he'd been replying for that whole hour.

"You're not even going to be looking after her."

"I know, but she'll still be hanging around."

"But likely not you if you don't want her to. You have a problem with animals, right?"

"Of course I do. They stink and they're messy." Draco scrunched his nose. "But I know beasts of the canine variety."

Harry raised an eyebrow and couldn't help but smirk a little. "The canine variety?"

"That's what it is. Now, stop beating around the bush and choose a bloody name for the creature or I'll just formally dub it 'Dog'."

Harry's smirk drew into a smile. It was wrong, he knew. Wrong that he should enjoy their argument, and wrong for what it meant – that Draco would be sticking around, would be with Harry for long enough to possibly get to know the little puppy and realise that dogs weren't so bad, and that he would be _with Harry._

He shouldn't be. Draco shouldn't stay for his own safety as much as anything. But Harry let the subject lie for another one of his stolen moments. He was feeling physically exhausted in a way that the emotional exhaustion of farewelling a visitor rarely left him. It had never happened like that before, that physical weariness. Harry could only attribute it to what he'd done with the puppy, what he couldn't even explain but what had felt so right.

 _How did I even do that?_ he thought, glancing down at where the puppy sleeping against his chest. _It felt right to bring her back, even though she was already dead, but how did it happen? I didn't even know what I was doing, but could I do it again?_

The prospect of being able to snatch back what Death stole before its time was exhilarating, but it was terrifying too. Harry had learnt to respect Death as much as hate it, to accept it even if he wanted to protest its occurrence. What did it mean if he could snatch someone away from its clutches?

And who was it restricted to? Could there be _other_ people, other victims? What of any injuries, or sicknesses, or the destruction of age upon the body? Could Harry fix that, too?

"You're doing it again," Draco said, shouldering his way into Harry's thoughts. "I thought we'd already discussed this. Don't think about that kind of thing."

Harry glanced towards him. He squinted briefly as a particularly fierce blast of air buffeted him, raking his fringe over the rim of his glasses and into his eyes. "That's a little hypocritical given that only an hour ago you were asking questions too," he said, blinking the strands clear.

"Yes," Draco replied with a nod, "but I also realised that the answers to those questions can't be determined with any certainty so we should let them rest for now. So get back on track, if you would."

 _We_ , Harry thought, kicking himself for it as much as he revelled in the joy that single word evoked as it seemed to chase away his lingering regrets for the Puppy Girl's departure. _He said 'we' as though he really is a part of all of this_.

Swallowing down the urge to smile as he shouldn't, Harry cleared his throat. "So a name," he said aloud. "Hm. I've never named anything before except my old owl."

"That would make two of us," Draco said, swinging the hanging bag in a windmill.

"We could name her after someone?" Harry raised a hand to stroke at the downy fur on the puppy's forehead. "Maybe not a famous witch or wizard, but someone?"

Draco drew his lips to the side, slowing to a stop as they drew before number twelve Grimmauld Place. He turned towards Harry, dropping his gaze to the puppy in his arms and frowning with less uneasiness and more consideration than he'd shown all morning.

"Did you know the kid's name?" he asked.

Harry blinked. "What?"

"The girl. The one that always brought you to the dogs. What was her name?"

Harry opened his mouth before slowly closing it. He hadn't asked her name. It wouldn't have been right to dredge up memories of the past and force the girl to relive them. The dead were in limbo and oftentimes were so grounded in the sole need that possessed them that anything beyond that could stress them into momentarily popping out of his company. Harry didn't want to force that. Not when they needed his help.

But that he didn't even know the little girl's name… That fact suddenly seemed a tragedy, and for more than their inability to name the puppy after her.

Harry struggled to swallow past the thick weight abruptly clogging his throat. "I, um, I didn't know her name. I just always thought of her as the Puppy Girl."

Draco arched an eyebrow that was blessedly less judgmental than it could have been. "The puppy girl? Well, that's not really a name, is it?

Harry nodded. Clearing his throat, he thrust aside the tightness and stroked at the puppy's head once more. "Not really. What about something like… like P-G, or something?"

"Pee-Gee?"

"Like an acronym."

"Pee-Gee isn't a name, Harry. Why in Merlin's name would you choose that?"

"I know it's not. It's an acronym. I just said that."

Draco rolled his eyes, and despite his blatant offence at Harry's poor naming skills, Harry almost smiled. He could actually feel it, which was a surprise in itself. "You can't name a dog an acronym. That's horrendous. At least use the letters to make a proper name."

Harry raised his own eyebrow, then his voice to be heard over a particularly loud wail of wind. They really should get inside. "Use the letters?"

"Yes," Draco said with a decisive nod. Harry didn't think he even realised he hunched against the wind, shucking his coat more tightly around himself. "A name. Like Peggy."

"Peggy?"

"Yes. Or Paige. Or, I don't know, Prudence or something."

"Prudence?" Harry snorted in an irrepressible bout of amusement. "What kind of a name is Prudence for a dog? That's even worse than…"

He trailed off. As though his voice had been stolen from him, Harry fell silent, and it wasn't because of a sudden epiphany for a name. A gust of something that wasn't wind, something colder than the residual chill of winter, struck him and sunk into his skin like water through a porous membrane.

It was impossible to mistake the familiar feeling of Death.

Harry turned slowly to glance over his shoulder and barely heard Draco's continued words. It wasn't scary, that feeling. Not anymore. But after a morning of seeing it, of feeling it and watching it fully swallow a little girl he'd known for months, Harry didn't want it around him.. Not even when it was in the form of Padfoot sitting dutifully on the bottom step of Grimmauld Place.

He was a big dog. A giant of a dog, even, and as scruffy as Harry remembered him in life. But there was nothing intimidating about his size or scruffiness; if anything, Harry had always found him comforting. He'd become even more so in his past few months alone when Padfoot had often stationed himself at Harry's side like a guard dog and he'd been able to feel him as more than insubstantial coldness when he leant against him.

Padfoot was regarding Harry with his head cocked. Or maybe it was the puppy that he stared at; Harry was never quite sure just how much dog there was in Sirius in his Animagus form. Harry watched him as Padfoot watched in return, before, with a lolling smile, his rose to his feet and trotted across the distance between them.

He drew alongside Harry. He stopped. He looked up at him, and his smile seemed to widen as his tongue flopped through his teeth. Then, with a deliberate nudge, he poked at the puppy's rump where she rested in Harry's arms. Whether coincidental or with some kind of extra sense, the puppy shifted slightly at the prod. Harry tightened his arms around her unconsciously, meeting Padfoot's dark eyes stare for stare.

It wasn't wrong to find a puppy. It wasn't replacing Padfoot, no more than Draco's company was replacing that Fred or Harry's parents. But it still felt like something of a betrayal.

Except that, as Padfoot cocked his head once more and grinned up at Harry, it didn't seem that way. Padfoot smiled, seemed happy, and Harry had always somehow been able to hear the words that he never spoke aloud.

 _This is good_ , Padfoot said. _I am happy with this_. _It will be good for you, to have her to care for._ Then he prodded the puppy's rump once more and took a slight step backwards, dropping onto his belly.

Harry should have expected it. A part of him even did; he'd somehow realised as soon as he saw Padfoot what was going to happen. There was a certain feeling in the weight of his deathly presence that said it would be his last visit.

But Harry wasn't prepared for it. Not when Padfoot started to fade like so many visitors before him, smiling up at Harry with a satisfied lupine grin. He nodded slightly, his eyes closing as he rested his head upon his paws.

Padfoot faded. And then he was gone.

Why a puppy urged him to leave, Harry didn't know for sure. He couldn't ask either, and for more than that he would never ask such things of his visitors. Harry couldn't ask because Padfoot – because Sirius – was gone for good. He wasn't coming back. Harry knew that on a bone deep level that didn't need explaining.

A familiar burning sensation that had nothing to do with the whipping wind rose in Harry's eyes. Blinking did nothing to rid him of it, but Harry tried anyway. He hitched the puppy in his arms, curled himself just slightly around her furnace-like weight, and stared down at the point Sirius had been.

 _He's gone. He's finally, completely gone. This should be a good thing, but…_

"What happened?"

Draco's voice was quiet. Hushed. Almost tentative, which was so far different to his normal tone that it dragged Harry just slightly out of his grief. Blinking furiously, he glanced towards him but couldn't manage to find his voice.

Draco was frowning. The joking, indignant expression he'd worn had faded to be replaced by solemnity, and despite his question, Harry suspected somehow he knew just a little. That suspicion was only proved when he continued. "Who is it?"

Harry couldn't explain. He hadn't told Draco about Padfoot, and he didn't think he could. Not now. He hadn't the heart, the strength, to explain why it hurt more that Padfoot would leave than any other visitor. In some ways, it hurt even more than Fred.

Shaking his head, Harry spared one more glance for the empty footpath where Padfoot had sat only moments before, then turned towards the front door. "Nothing," he said, uncaring that his voice caught. "It's nothing. No one's there." Before Draco could ask further, he turned and strode towards the steps. "Come on, let's get Peggy inside. It's cold out here, apparently."

For whatever reason – Harry's words and deflection or something else – Draco didn't speak further. He followed after Harry as they left the steps where Padfoot had so often sat. The shadow of him wouldn't ever come back again. Harry knew that, and the bittersweet reality of it ached to his core.

* * *

A/N: I don't know why, but this chapter makes me really emotional. Maybe it's the dog thing. Is it obvious that I've got and lost dogs before? Because I totally got choked up with the thought of it, and it's my own freaking story. So silly.  
Thank you for reading again, and thank you especially to the dear people who have reviewed time and time again. I look forward to seeing you next time.


	18. Chapter 18 - Onwards

**Chapter 18: Onwards**

There was an old woman. She asked that her cat be taken to her daughter-in-law's. Harry obliged, and without question, Draco accompanied him.

There was a feeble man, old before his time, who could barely speak but still pleaded that someone attend his funeral as there was no one else to see him off. Harry had every intention of walking through the rain that afflicted London that afternoon, but he didn't have to. Draco's Apparition took care of it.

The man on the bridge got his ring back to his family.

The emaciated boy managed to supply his hidden treasure trove of faded coins to his twin brother.

A frail woman who wished for nothing but to thank the kindly nurses who had cared for her managed to do just that.

And it was because of Draco. Draco was the one who retrieved the ring with his magic. He was the one who, despite Harry protesting that he was more than capable of doing it himself, had magically dug the treasure chest from the boy's back garden so Harry didn't have to use his hands. And when Harry struggled to find the right words to say as he always did, Draco took up the baton of speech and solemnly conversed to each of the nurses in the hospital ward, thanking them for helping his 'aunt' in the months before her passing.

It was horribly kind. Horribly comforting. Harry hadn't realised just how good it was to have someone standing at his side at a funeral for a stranger until Draco stood alongside him.

"You've got to stop doing this," Harry said one evening as he stood, paintbrush in hand, before the hallway wall and contemplated the untouched whiteness spread before him.

"Doing what?" Draco said from behind him.

Harry glanced over his shoulder. Draco didn't have to sit with him when he fell into throughs of painting in an escape from his melancholy or simply the desire to avoid thinking, but he did. Time and time again he did, even if it was just to sit in a conjured chair and read a book he'd retrieved from the Malfoy Manor library.

Draco must have felt Harry's gaze upon him, for he raised his own from his book, finger dropping to mark his place. "What?" he asked.

Harry shook his head slightly. "You know what," he said, turning back to the wall and absently raising his paintbrush and easel. "Helping the visitors is my responsibility. How am I going to be able to manage that when you eventually leave if I get used to you always taking care of it?"

Draco remained silent and watchful, but only briefly. Harry lost himself just as briefly in the soothing motions of stroking and sketching, subconsciously constructing a piece with little understanding of what he was actually doing. His painting ceased, however, as Draco shifted in his chair with a squeak and gave a loud huff.

"I think you'll find, Harry, that I'm not going anywhere. In my expert opinion, you're not better, so I'll stay."

Harry caught his lip between his teeth. Avoiding the urge to glance towards Draco, he dropped his gaze instead to his feet where Peggy lay practically on his toes. She was a small thing, still skinny, but the mottling of her coat had become less dirty and more simply patterned since they'd cleaned her up. She was a remarkably happy little creature given the trauma she'd clearly endured before Harry and Draco had found her. That she seemed to dote on Harry – and Draco, for that matter, despite his protests – was an added warmth to the dreary ensemble of Grimmauld Place that Harry hadn't known he'd needed.

Peggy always sat with Harry nowadays. She accompanied him everywhere, whether to his room, to breakfast, or in a effort to help a visitor. She was, in many ways, very like Draco in that regard.

How will I manage without them? he wondered, and almost shivered at the thought. How quickly and easily they'd both slipped into his life, and how terrifying the thought that they would one day leave him. Everyone did. Everyone had to, either through death or because they needed to avoid what his magic would inflict upon them.

Which was why Harry let it happen. Just for a time, he let Draco stay without kicking up too much of a protest, and he basked in his and Peggy's simple company. It couldn't – shouldn't – last forever, but just for a moment… just for a little while...

Besides, Draco had said he would leave when Harry was better. Harry didn't know at what point he would qualify as 'better', exactly, but he could only assume that, when Draco had reached the end of his enduring tether, he would indeed leave.

That was a good thing. It hurt, but it was a good thing.

Slipping back into their routine was easy. It was natural. For Harry, sharing his otherwise isolated space with Draco was easy too. How he managed to simply fit into Grimmauld Place, into Harry's life, was something that Harry couldn't explain, yet he did. He didn't even seem particularly out of place when Hermione visited, though those visits seemed little less frequent now that she seemed to have accepted Draco's competency in his assumed position. That Draco didn't bite back at her quite as fiercely as he once had said something too.

Easy. Simple. It was as though Draco had never left, despite being gone for months, and Harry was almost surprised by how naturally he seemed to slot back into the space he'd once filled. Draco had become a part of Harry's life that endured even in his absence. It felt right. Whether intentionally or otherwise, Draco was helping him. To Harry, it felt strange to be the one being 'cared for', but Harry didn't know how to otherwise respond to the treatment beyond accepting it with feeble protestations.

Besides, Draco wasn't beyond needing help himself. He'd changed, had certainly made leaps and bounds in improving his health, but he still wasn't wholly better.

The first of April found Harry climbing the stairs on silent feet that still managed to creak with each step. Peggy followed on his heels, her nose to the ground and slinking just as quietly. She'd gotten bigger under Harry's care – and Draco's too, though he would likely deny it within an inch of his life – but still managed to creep with barely a whisper of accompaniment. She knew something was wrong. Just like Harry did.

Draco hadn't come down to breakfast that morning. That in itself wasn't entirely unsurprising; sometimes Harry found himself in the basement kitchen to receive a message from Kreacher that "the Malfoy brat had to step out". He pretended it didn't hurt, that it didn't leave him a little hollow, even though he recognised the emotion for what it was.

 _He's going to go eventually anyway_ , Harry reminded himself time and time again. _You may as well get used to it._

Such acceptance was easier said than done, however. The kitchen seemed bigger, echoing slightly filled only with Harry himself and Peggy as she sat dutifully at his side. No mutters of a certain pureblood ex-rival as he spoke more to himself than to Harry. No demands for the sugar to add to his already sickly sweet tea when he could very easily reach for that sugar himself. No smiles or smirks, the absence of what sometimes even became laughter.

Harry didn't know what he would do when it was gone for good. Draco said he wasn't leaving yet, but that 'yet' hung ominously over Harry regardless of how necessary he knew the eventuality to be.

That morning he'd expected that Draco had returned to Malfoy Manor when he was absent from breakfast. Sleeping in separate rooms since Draco's return found them descending of a morning and meeting in the basement rather than filing after one another. Sometimes Draco went to directly to see his father. Sometimes he left for an early doctor's appointment, or to see his Mind Healer. Sometimes he explained that he even visited Hermione to assist with the VLF, though such excursions arose infrequently at best.

But Draco wasn't gone. Kreacher vanquished any thoughts of such a possibility when he plucked Harry's plate from before him to take to the sink. "The Malfoy brat is returning to his layabout ways," he grumbled. "Kreacher will not be taking him his breakfast."

Harry, pausing in the act of feeding Peggy a scrap of sausage from his plate, glanced towards him. "What?"

Kreacher grumbled something else under his breath as he stretched on his toes and scrubbed in the dishwater before raising his voice to reply. "Kreacher will not be dancing to the Malfoy brat's tune, and neither should Master. The brat should know when he has pushed his luck and imposed too far as a guest."

Hand dropping absently onto Peggy's head, Harry glanced towards the ceiling. Of course, he couldn't see Draco, and wouldn't have been able to even had he the magic that he used to, but with an unconscious nudge of the magic he still had, the magic that wasn't quite malleable but somehow still acted as a tool on occasion, he tentatively reached overhead.

Draco's illness, the depression that had tied him to his bed for weeks the previous year, had felt like Death. It was a horrible feeling whenever Harry encountered it, but it was undeniable. Coupled with how Harry had found him in the first place, the prospect was terrifying. To think that Draco could carry that weight around with horrible to consider in a way far more personal than Harry felt even with his visitors.

But that feeling had retreated. Over time, as Draco took his medication and used it as a crutch to gradually climb from the well he'd fallen into, it had retreated until Harry couldn't feel it at all. He hadn't for a long time, not on Draco, but at Kreacher's words, a hint of fear welled within Harry once more.

He reached. He skimmed. He prodded with his magic for any hint of a return of that Deathly presence. Blessedly he found nothing, but it was only with tentative relief that he rose from his seat and started up the stairwell, winding his way towards Draco's room.

On the landing just outside Draco's door, Harry paused. He pressed his palm briefly to the door, nudged his magic into a skimming assessment once more, and was briefly heartened again that he couldn't quite feel the cold, tinted weight of Death. He glanced down at Peggy where she stared up at him with her unblinkingly attentive gaze.

"Is it intrusive to just go in, do you think?" he asked in a whisper.

Peggy cocked her head slightly, just as she always did when Harry spoke directly to her. Her tail twitched and she briefly touched her nose to his leg. Harry couldn't understand her unspoken words, not as he had Padfoot's, but her encouragement was enough encouragement to rap his knuckles on the door.

There was no reply, but Harry hadn't really expected any. He glanced down at Peggy once more, took her hint of a wag as further encouragement, and eased the door open.

Regulus' room wasn't really Regulus' anymore, and it hadn't been even before Draco had left a week before the Christmas past. But since his return it had become even more his own. He'd changed the bed, for one; the mattress looked thicker, the frame changed into one of iron-wrought elegance, and the plaid quilt cover had been exchanged for a black and silver pattern instead. The wardrobe had doubled in number because apparently one wasn't enough for Draco, and throughout the room were little pieces of Draco that bespoke his persisting presence: a book on the nightstand, shoes besides the door, a cloak draped over the arm of the single chair in the room.

Harry hadn't been fully inside since he'd first delivered Draco to the room upon his return, and despite hearing the scrape and bang of Draco's adjustments he was almost shocked by the sight. Or he would have been if that feeling of rightness hadn't accompanied it. That rightness that shouldn't be there. That rightness that would have to be extricated again eventually.

For the moment, however, Harry thrust such thoughts aside. He had more important matters to consider – like the fact that Draco was even then sprawled in bed with a single arm hanging abandoned off the edge of the mattress and staring towards the alcove window where Harry had sat alongside countless times.

Harry knew he was staring. He knew he was awake, because he'd seen it just as many times before. The familiarity of that image, the exhibition of what Harry had identified as being a tell-tale sign of Draco's Bad Days, was so familiar it hit him like a physical blow in his chest. For a moment, all Harry could do was stare at him and regret. Death might not hang around Draco as it once had, but that didn't make his struggle with depression any easier. It was easy to almost forget he suffered at all when Draco seemed so confident and so - so _better_ , but it was impossible to overlook.

Harry was shaken from his staring by Peggy's warmth abruptly leaning against his leg. He glanced down, met her dark stare once more, focused as it always was upon him, and silently thanked her for drawing him from his thoughts. Crouching slightly, he ruffled her ears before edging towards Draco's bed.

"Draco?" he whispered, but even those words seemed too loud for the stagnation of the room.

Draco didn't reply, but then Harry hadn't really expected him to. He curled his hand around one of the posts of the bed and watched him as Draco blinked heavy eyes. There was an exhaustion accompanying the listlessness of his depression that Harry had realised long ago. It was less of a disinclination to rise and face the day and it was an inability to. That was something that Kreacher didn't understand, what with his accusations of Draco being a layabout.

"Is there anything I can get you?" Harry asked just as quietly.

Draco didn't quite shift in place, but something about the way he blinked told Harry he knew he was he heard him. It was enough encouragement to keep him talking.

"Whatever you need, I'm more than happy to get for you. Or –" Harry bit his lip, frowning to himself. "Or if you just want to just be alone for a while then I can… I could leave you alone. If you'd like."

Harry didn't want to leave Draco. He never wanted Draco to leave him either, hated the thought of it, but this was a different kind of want. He hated to see people hurting, people in need, even if there was nothing he could do to help them. It wasn't fair. People shouldn't suffer so much, whether they were visitors and already dead or struggled with life itself.

Even without the lingering shadow of Death, Harry wanted to stay with Draco. His reason had become personal, because Draco was just that. Whether he was a friend or a carer or something else entirely Harry didn't know, but Draco meant something to him that his other visitors didn't. Harry didn't want to leave him. He didn't want him to be upset. He didn't want him to hurt.

Which was why Draco's barely audible reply said so much. "No," he murmured, almost to himself. "You can stay."

It meant something. It meant more than something, more than Harry could possibly say. A different kind of weight to his familiar grief tightened Harry's throat, and he wouldn't have been able to force a word out had he one to say. That Draco had drawn himself, however briefly and feebly, from the throes of whatever gripped him to reply? That meant something special.

Nodding more to himself that to Draco, Harry released the post and skirted the bed. He hadn't any awareness of what he was doing until he was already climbing across the mattress to prop himself with his back against the headboard and his knees drawn his chest, arms locked around them. It had been a long time since he'd sat alongside Draco in his bed, but that time seemed nothing at all for how natural it felt.

Draco didn't reply again. He didn't glance towards Harry or otherwise acknowledge that he knew he was there. Harry didn't breathe a word either. He didn't need to.

The three of them – Draco lying prone, Harry still and silent at his side, and Peggy at the foot of the bed with her face turned towards them – remained unmoving for the rest of the morning. It might have been horrible, might have been listless and bland, thick with the melancholic air that always shrouded Draco when he was struck by a Bad Day, but it wasn't necessarily terrible. Not all of it. And when they rose without a word that afternoon to finally leave the room, Harry felt lighter for the weight that shrugged off his shoulders with it.

It shouldn't have felt as good as it did. Harry shouldn't have let it. But just for a time, he allowed himself to appreciate the perfect comfort of his company.

* * *

"You didn't have to come," Harry said.

"You mean you didn't have to come."

Harry paused in the middle of Diagon Alley and turned towards Draco. In the glaring light of an unexpectedly bright day, Draco stood out like a sore thumb in his typically reserved and dreary black clothes. They made him look even paler than he usually was – or than he usually was of late. He was nowhere near the deathly paleness he'd once been, and Harry was silently grateful for the fact.

Not, however, at that moment. He frowned at Draco where Draco regarded him in turn with a slightly raised chin and very raised eyebrow. "Of course I'm coming," Harry said. "She's my dog. I'm not going to let someone else take her to such a big procedure."

"Neutering is hardly a big procedure," Draco said, scrunching his nose slightly. "And I'm more than capable of taking her."

"You always complain about looking after her."

"So?"

"So why would I possibly leave it up to you?"

Draco clicked his tongue, folding his arms primly. "In case you've missed this, Harry, though I am somewhat… reluctant to admit it, she's my dog too."

Had Harry not already been stopped in place, he would have likely stumbled over his own feet. He knew his mouth flop open but could do absolutely nothing about it. Draco had just… he'd just said - "What?"

Draco frowned, pressing his lips together, and, to Harry's incredulity, a hint of colour rose in his cheeks. "Shut up. Don't make me repeat it."

Harry didn't make him. He could hardly think to say anything at all. That Draco had admitted such a thing…

Their morning had been wrought with its own kind of worry and nervousness that had infected Peggy more because it had seeped from Harry than for any understanding on her part. In such a short time Peggy had become the fur-child that Harry had never had and never even wanted. She shadowed him every step of his day, and only ceased in doing so when Draco disappeared for a time and she felt the need to search him out to determine where he was. Only briefly, however, before she returned to shadowing Harry once more, but it was long enough that Harry had noticed.

Taking her to Diagon Alley to get desexed, even if the procedure took barely an hour with Healing Charms included, was a shock to his comfortable, work-a-day habits that Harry hadn't expected. He felt like he'd lost an arm without her and for once the threat of being seen by passers-by, of being recognised even with his hood drawn, was secondary in Harry's mind.

Draco had offered to take Peggy himself so that Harry didn't have to step into the danger zone of Diagon Alley, but how could Harry possibly allow such a thing?

Still, even his gnawing worry for Peggy – what if something went wrong? What if there was a problem with the Anaesthetic Charm? – Harry was momentarily stunned by Draco's words. "Peggy's yours?"

The colour deepened in Draco's cheeks and he deliberately turned to glare along the thinly crowded street. "Shut up."

Harry slowly shook his head. "I thought you said you didn't like animals."

"I don't." Draco sniffed. "Peggy's an exception."

"You don't like dogs, either. You said they're dirty and slobbery, and always in your face, and –"

"I told you," Draco interrupted him, glancing back towards Harry and narrowing his eyes. "I don't mind Peggy. And it's just the little yappy dogs I have a problem with. Peggy's not yappy. Or dirty. And she doesn't slobber."

Harry shook his head again. "Unbelievable. That the day would come…"

"Shut up, Harry," Draco said with a sigh and exaggerated roll of his eyes. "If you're going to keep this up, I'm abandoning you and the dog both and you'll have to find your own way home."

 _But you won't,_ Harry thought, the now familiar warmth that always arose at that very realisation welling within him. _Not yet you won't. Soon you'll have to, but not just yet._

He found himself smiling, and it was likely that which drew another click from Draco's tongue. He turned away from Harry and raised a hand as he stalked away from him. "Shut up, would you," he repeated. "Honestly, you're embarrassing yourself."

"Where are you going?" Harry called after him, for Draco was clearly making a beeline for something that Harry couldn't determine in the opposite direction to that which they'd come.

"I'm going to get some chestnuts?" Draco replied over his shoulder, swerving around a witch with a broomstick slung over her shoulder.

Harry blinked. "Chestnuts?"

"Do you want some?"

"That depends. If you get that sickly sweet sugar-glazed stuff rather than real roasted chestnuts, then no."

Draco spared a glance over his shoulder, a pointed raise of his eyebrows, but otherwise didn't respond. He disappeared into the thickening crowd, and Harry could only shake his head in something that felt very much like fondness. To think, that once they hadn't been anything even resembling friends, and now…

Turning, shoving his hands into his pockets, Harry continued in the direction he'd been heading. He had less than an hour to kill before Peggy would be ready to be picked up, and he hadn't visited Diagon Alley in some time. Not since Fred had left. In the relative privacy of his hood, he wandered down streets that hadn't changed in his absence, grazing his eyes over glass-windowed shopfronts and weaving through the crowds of robed witches and wizards that would draw many a speculative gaze in any other part of London.

Harry didn't like being around people. Not around the Wizarding world, because it entailed the limelight. But even so, he would admit to missing the feeling of being around others who understood the presence of magic. He missed being around people. He would have to maintain the habit when Draco eventually left.

Eventually.

Down a street, around a corner, passing a familiar streetlamp – Harry should have expected his feet to wind their way along their usual path, but somehow he was still a little surprised when, lifting his gaze from the cobblestones beneath his feet, he found himself across the road from Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. He paused, just as he had with Fred countless times before, and stared at the shop that George and Ron owned.

It hadn't changed either. The consistent bursts of fireworks still sprung from the chimney. The windows still flashed and sparkled with the displays behind them. The door was almost constantly shouldered open as an endless stream of shoppers drifted in and then out again. The three Ws dancing above the door were as merry as ever.

It was the same. The same as it always had been. Nothing had changed since Fred had left except for maybe the better. Fred had been right; George was healing, had finally dragged himslf past his grieving, and was building his life beyond the loss of his twin. It was sad, stung a little, but the truth was somehow comforting too.

Harry didn't know how long he stared at the store, his back against the brick wall directly opposite as he'd leant so many times before. He wasn't thinking, wasn't counting the minutes, and barely noticed each customer that arrived and departed. He only vaguely noticed when someone passed close by him and their eyes widened, the murmured, "That's Harry Potter, isn't it?" hanging in the air behind them as they scurried away.

He didn't notice when the door opened and Ron stepped out, either. Harry didn't notice at all until, seemingly out of nowhere, Ron spoke from his side.

"Hi."

Jumping slightly, Harry dragged his gaze from the shop. Right there, right next to him, Ron stood in all of the awkward gangliness that had never quite left him. For a moment, all Harry could do was stare at him.

He'd cut his hair. He'd reoutfitted himself with new robes. He'd adorned himself in the typical make-up of an inventor, dark ash colouring his fingertips and a smear of grey upon the side of his nose. Harry had heard from Hermione that Ron was dabbling more in inventive pursuits of things of late but he hadn't quite fully comprehended that fact until Ron stood before him.

Ron, who had once been his friend. Ron, who he'd unintentionally hurt, had pushed away, in his attempt to help his dead brother. Ron, who had moved on from Harry and built a life much in the same way that George had from Fred.

Fighting the urge to sink into himself and hunch his shoulders to slink quickly away, Harry turned towards him. It was a struggle to retain his composure, one that the awkward shuffling of Ron's feet mirrored.

"Hey," he finally said.

Silence hung between them. It was a deafening silence, broken only by the babble of the crowd that drifted alongside them and an outburst of laughter from a client as they stepped from Ron's store. Harry stared at his old friend just as Ron regarded him in turn. He didn't know what to say, couldn't think of a single word, and as such, it was a blessing that Ron finally found his own tongue.

"It's been a while," he said.

Harry nodded. "Yeah," he croaked.

"You're looking… better."

Harry swallowed thickly. Better. Better wasn't a good thing, not with what it entailed. Not with what it meant with Draco. For the moment, however, Harry thrust the thought aside. Ron thought he looked better? Better than…? "What do you mean?"

Ron shuffled his feet once more. His ears darkened with a hint of redness. "Just that – I mean, I heard from Hermione that you, ah, what happened with you. When you were in the hospital and, um…"

He trailed off, and this time, Harry couldn't help but hunch his shoulders a little. Ron had heard. Of course he'd heard, because Harry hadn't really expected Hermione to keep silent about the situation. She shouldn't have to, and especially not when Harry hadn't even asked it of her.

Curling his hands into fists in his pockets, Harry nodded again. "Yeah. That. That was..."

"Yeah," Ron echoed.

Sllence resettled once more, and it was even more awkward this time. There was none of that easy camaraderie that they'd once shared. The companionable friendship that had survived years of school, years of war, had flickered and died with time and distance. Harry regretted that. It was one of many things that he regretted in the history of his failings.

He wanted to ask how Ron had been. He wanted to know he was okay, how the shop was doing, if Hermione was accurate in her vague and oftentimes incomprehensible explanations of what was happening in Ron's life. He wanted to ask how Molly was, how Ginny was keeping, how Bill's kids were doing and if Charlie had been to touch recently. So much Harry wanted to know.

And yet he couldn't get a word out. Again, it was Ron who finally spoke first. "Sorry," he muttered, his own shoulders hitching slightly as he glanced sidelong at the shoppers who idled past them. "I didn't mean to bring that up."

"It's fine," Harry said.

"Nah, I mean it." More awkward shuffling. "I just meant to say that you look like you're doing better than you were last time I saw you."

Last time? When had been last time? Harry couldn't even remember. "Yeah, well… I got a dog."

Ron swung his gaze back towards him. "A dog?"

Harry nodded. Talking about Peggy was easier than discussing his own circumstances. "Yeah. She's great. She's, um... she's helped a lot."

"Oh." Ron frowned slightly, thoughtfully. "That's great. You've always liked dogs, what with Padfoot and all."

Harry attempted a smile. "Yeah."

"I thought it might have been, you know, because of him."

It was Harry's turn to frown. "Him?"

Ron didn't reply – or at least not verbally. Instead, he tipped his head in a gesture over Harry's shoulder, and Harry instinctively followed his direction.

Through the thin crowd he caught sight of Draco striding towards him. He was at Harry's side in short order and, with only a glance of acknowledgement towards Ron, turned his full attention onto Harry. Without ceremony, he held out a wax-paper bag. "Here. Don't say I never do anything for you."

Blinking, at a loss, Harry, accepted the bag. Nearly burning his hand on the bottom, he pried it open briefly and felt his eyebrows rise. "You got me roasted chestnuts?"

Draco spared him another glance as he peeled his own paper bag open and extracted a sugar-coated chestnut. "You asked for them, didn't you?"

"Sort of, I guess. But you didn't have to go and get –"

"And you don't like _marron glacé_ for reasons I can't fathom," Draco continued, popping on of the very sweets into his mouth. "Or was that all a show and you'd like the sweet ones? Because I'm not sharing with you."

Harry shook his head slightly but couldn't help but smile, if a little incredulously. Draco pretended to be nonchalant, to be disregarding, but he couldn't completely disguise the touch of kindness that dwelt beneath his bravado. Harry wondered if it had always been there and simply reserved for his friends or if the development was new in coming with age. After a moment of thought, he decided it didn't matter and, plucking one of his own still-piping hot chestnut from the bag, popped into his mouth.

"So weird..."

At Ron's words, Harry glanced back to where he'd almost forgotten he stood. Ron was shaking his head, though seemed more awed and a little shocked than denying what he sawl. His eyes drew between Harry and Draco, eyebrows climbing up his forehead.

"Weasley," Draco acknowledged him with a flat word. Flat, but unprovocative, which was something, at least.

"Malfoy, you –" Ron cut himself off, shaking his head. "I didn't believe Hermione when she told me, but you really –?"

"Really," Draco said with a short nod, plucking another chestnut from his bag.

"She said that you were staying at –"

"I am," Draco finished for him, inspecting the sugar-glazed chestnut between his fingers.

"And that you were probably going to –"

"Yes, that's the intention."

"Really?"

"You doubt me?"

"Can you blame me? It's a bit of a commitment to –"

"I want to. This is what I've chosen, and I stick by my decisions."

Ron shook his head slowly once more, but something changed in his expression as he turned his back onto Harry. For his part, Harry frowned between the two of them. He had not a clue what had just been exchanged, felt like he'd missed out on a good half of the conversation, and felt even more baffled for the hint of something very definitely satisfied touching the corners of Ron's lips in the crooked beginnings of a smile.

"I'm glad, then," he said. "Never thought I'd see the day you'd move in with Malfoy, Harry, but I'm glad. It's good that you, that you've got someone to stick around. I mean, erm… I mean since Hermione can't be there all the time and – and I can't –"

"You mean you don't want to," Draco interrupted him, and Ron snapped his gaze towards him.

Harry turned towards Draco himself, frown deepening. "What is he talking about? Moving in? Draco, what's this?"

"That's what Hermione told me," Ron said. "That's it, isn't it? I mean, with Malfoy you can never tell, but maybe –"

"Shut up for a moment, Weasley," Draco said. He didn't spare Ron a glance even with his indignant grumble, but locked his gaze with Harry's instead. "I told you this already."

"You didn't say that," Harry said hollowly.

"I said I was staying."

"Yeah, till I got better."

"Better?" Ron asked, but they both ignored him.

Draco shook his head, scrunching the top of his paper bag in a fist as he folded his arms. His chin rose, nose tipping slightly, and it was such a familiar pose, brought back such memories of the past, that Harry was momentarily struck. Only for a second, however, because when Draco spoke, he commanded Harry's attention to the point that he all but forgot where he was. He forgot about the crowds dawdling past and the possibility for being noticed for the fame he'd never wanted. He forgot about Ron at his side too, shuffling between his feet as he stood in awkward and silent attentiveness.

Harry stared at Draco, and horror, dispute, and longing battled within him. He thought he knew. He thought he might have always known Draco's intentions but looked the other way because he wasn't allowed to dwell upon the possibility. But now…

"I told you I'd stick by you until you got better," Draco said, his voice lowering but dying none in its intensity. "Just as you did for me. But not in repayment, Harry. Or not only that. I'm staying because I want to."

"But I'm fine," Harry said, lowering his own voice. His nails dug into his palms where they curled even tighter in his pockets. "Draco, you've seen it, I'm –"

"You're not," Draco said.

"Yes I am. And besides, I've got Peggy now, so –"

"You're not fine. You need someone with you."

"I've got my visitors. I've got - I've got people, and –"

"You need help with them too. So, I'll help you."

"Draco." Harry's voice cracked, and longing welled forth. Someone. Just someone to be there would be the greatest thing in the world, but if it could be Draco who seemed to fit so perfectly… Harry couldn't possibly want more than that, even as he knew he couldn't have it. "You can't do that."

Draco's chin tipped just a little higher until he was looking down his nose at Harry, yet it somehow felt more defiant that condescending. "Actually, I can."

"You can't. You know you can't, because my magic –"

"I don't care."

"You have to care, because it will –"

"No, I don't."

"Draco, it's dangerous!"

"What is?"

At Ron's words, Harry whipped his attention towards him and all but jumped again as he was drawn back to the present. Diagon Alley, the shoppers milling past, Ron listening to Harry's and Draco's every word and darting his wide-eyed stare between them as though he watched a tennis rally. Harry's breath caught in his throat, but it wasn't that which truly silenced him.

With the hand not crushing his bag of chestnuts so tightly his knuckles whitened, Draco reached for Harry and latched onto his wrist. His fingers were long and thin, warm to the touch against, but they grasped with an unyielding grip.

"Nothing, Weasley," Draco said shortly, sparing him a glance of his own. "It's nothing."

"But," Ron began, but Draco was already turning away from him and all but dragging Harry after him. Harry threw a final glance over his shoulder towards Ron, but his mind was turned decidedly from his old friend. Seeing Ron was good. Sad, but good. And yet, at that moment, Harry could barely spare him a thought.

Draco was doing it again. He was saying it again and… and Harry couldn't…

"Draco, stop it," he finally managed as distance and the crowd blotted out Ron's watchful figure. He didn't try to snatch his arm free, however, and he knew Draco understood it wasn't his hold that Harry referred to.

"No, you stop it," Draco replied without even glancing towards him. "Stop being so stubborn."

"I'm being stubborn?" Choking thickness clogged Harry's throat almost painful. "Why can't you just accept the inevitable and leave well enough alone?"

"What, by leaving you alone?" Draco asked, turning a sharp corner around a pop-up shop in the middle of the street and swinging Harry in an arc after him. "Why don't you accept the inevitable?"

"Because it can't happen, Draco," Harry insisted. He hated the plea in his voice, but it was necessary. "Death magic is dangerous."

Draco glanced sidelong at a pair of witches that spared them a passing glance but didn't otherwise acknowledge mention of Harry's magic. Harry didn't care in that moment either; Draco needed to know. He needed to stop this.

"I know it's bloody well dangerous," Draco said, swinging his gaze over his shoulder towards Harry. But he didn't slow in step. His lips thinned, almost disappearing in a flat line. "And I know it's just as dangerous to you as it is to me."

"But you don't have to deal with it," Harry said. A burning sensation rose in his eyes and he blinked it away furiously. "It's bad enough for one person."

"So, you'll do it alone?"

"We've already talked about this."

"Yes, and you've given me a stupid reply."

"Draco –"

"Why can't you just accept help?"

"Can you please stop?" Harry pleaded, his eyes blurring. He nearly tripped over some unseen step and didn't care that he was likely making a fool of himself. Draco was… Draco was saying that… What he was offering was something that Harry could only long for and never attain, because Death magic really was dangerous. In many ways, to steal someone's Death away from them was as bad as stealing their life. What was the bloody point if time was an illusion and opportunity meant nothing?

The burning in his eyes intensified, and Harry's blinking seemed to do any good in vanquishing it.

When Draco finally slowed in step, he turned sharply towards Harry. Through the blurring of his vision, Harry could just make out his pale face, his furrowed brow and dark, intent stare. He shook his head just slightly, but no rebuttal was offered. Instead, his fingers squeezed Harry's wrist just slightly and he tugged him after him once more.

"We'll discuss this when we get home," he said lowly, but nothing more. Harry let himself be led in silence; he could hardly see to be able to lead himself anyway.

They stopped back at the veterinarian's a little early, but punctuality was apparently a merit of Dr. Stacey's, for Peggy was ready and waiting almost as soon as they stepped through the door. Harry sank to his knees on the vinyl floor before her and wrapped her wriggling body in his arms as she showered him in snuffling kisses. It wasn't entirely because of his fear for her supposedly standard operation that he clung so tightly.

Peggy seemed to understand his unspoken need, all but climbing into his lap despite her size and pressing herself against him. She might not have been Padfoot, but in many ways the warmth of her little body and the further warmth of her instinctive support was even better.

Draco handled the bill, and Harry couldn't find it within himself to protest this time. Then, without even suggesting they stand, Draco simply dropped his hand onto Harry's shoulder. With a tugging, squeezing lurch, Harry was slapped with a crack of magic and they Apparated from the shop.

Home.

Harry knew they were home the moment they landed. The hallway was dark. The floorboards were hard beneath his knees, and that hardness was lessened none by threadbare runner that covered it. Peggy huffed and gagged slightly as she always did when dragged through Apparition, but didn't otherwise extricate herself from Harry's hold.

And Draco – his hand remained on Harry's shoulder.

"This needs to stop," Harry finally said after a long moment of silence that seemed to echo throughout the entirety of the house. "Draco, you need to leave."

"No," Draco said simply.

"I've told you time and time again why it's necessary. You have to go."

"No. I don't want to. And I'm allowed to stay."

"Draco," Harry began, raising his gaze towards him.

"Unless you truly want me to leave," Draco continued over him. His face was blank, but the curl of his fingers biting into Harry's shoulder was telling. Not painful or even discomforting, but firm. As unyielding as it had been when he'd dragged Harry through Diagon Alley. "If you really, truly want me to leave, not just because you think I should, then I'll consider it."

"Draco," Harry began again, but once more, Draco persisted.

Dropping onto his haunches in a squat so unlike anything that the stoically refined pureblood he was should have done, Draco tilted his head slightly. Even through the blurriness of his eyes, Harry could see Draco's gaze rake across his face. "You're always pushing people away while at the same time trying to help them," Draco said, his voice dropped as quietly as a visitor's. "You did it with the Weasley's, I think, even if you didn't realise it."

Harry opened his mouth to reply once more, to deny, but Draco spoke over him again. "And you do it with Granger. I've seen that too. I would have known it even if she hadn't told me."

"She's busy," Harry whispered, clinging onto Peggy as she snuffled into his neck. "She can't… She shouldn't have to be…"

"You're overlooking the fact that people want to be here," Draco said. Dropping an elbow into his knee, he cradled his chin in his palm and watched Harry intently. His expression had softened in a way that Harry had never seen before; he'd never even suspected that Draco was capable of such softness. "Why would you think that she – that _I_ wouldn't stick around if I didn't want to?"

"Because," Harry attempted, but his voice choked off, and then he couldn't see Draco through the upwelling of tears in his eyes. _Because you shouldn't have to be. Because what my magic has become is dangerous and can take so much from you. Because I see people who've died, and I can't possibly spare the time for you with how much they need me._

"Let me make my own decisions, Harry," Draco murmured. "Even if they're different to what you think they should be."

"But," Harry reattempted and once more faltered.

"Just like you did for me. You helped me even when I didn't know what I really needed. Right?"

It was an effort to wipe at his eyes between clinging to Peggy and fumbling around his glasses, but Harry managed. Shoulders hunching, curling upon himself, he wiped at them furiously, and it was only when they protested to their rough treatment and he stopped, glanced up, that he saw them.

His parents. Not one but both of them. They'd appeared in the hallway as they never did, because the library and the kitchen were their respective domains. They stood just a foot behind Draco, side by side, and stared at Harry with identical expressions.

"What…?" Harry began, and he could barely hear his own words.

Lily smiled. She had a beautiful smile, the softness even softer in her youthful face. "You've fought for so long, sweetheart," she whispered. "Let go for once."

Harry's breath hitched.

"It's not always as simple as a yes or a no," James said, cocking his head and smiling crookedly. "Don't deny every opportunity that presents itself."

Harry's eyes stung, blurring once more, but he couldn't bring himself to wipe at them clear.

"Is it so bad to let this boy make his own decision?" Lily asked.

"If it's what he wants?" James asked.

"Even if it goes against what you think it right?"

"Maybe right and wrong are a bit on a spectrum, do you think?"

"We can't always be fighting, sweetheart. We can't always struggle and battle to put others first as we think we should. And this…"

She gestured towards Draco where he still stared at Harry silently, watchfully, utterly oblivious to Harry's parents standing behind him. It was James who continued. "We always need someone, Harry. Everyone does. Even if that someone is the last person we'd expect."

"There's always someone that fits neatly into place."

They spoke Harry's thoughts. Both of them spoke the words that Harry longed to utter, to recognise, to embrace and pursue but couldn't let himself. Because it wasn't right. It wasn't fair. And yet…

"I don't want to be alone," he said to them, his words barely audible.

It wasn't Lily who replied, though her smile softened even further. It wasn't James either, though he nodded knowingly. Instead, Draco shuffled forward in his crouch until their foreheads were nearly touching and murmured for Harry's ears alone. "So don't be. Let me stay."

Harry hadn't cried in a long time. He'd wanted to, needed to at times, but he hadn't let himself. It hadn't felt right. And yet at Draco's words the floodgates that had stood for so long and so stubbornly crumbled.

Sobs caught in his chest and he couldn't suppress them. Tears welled in his eyes and tumbled forth, dribbling down his cheeks. His breath hitched, heaved, and in seconds it was all he could do to drop his face into Peggy's ruff and smother himself as every ache, every longing, every night alone with a paintbrush in hand and every moment watching the fireplace as Hermione left him – it all rose and spilled forth.

Harry didn't want to be alone. Never.

He didn't want Draco to leave. Not ever.

He didn't want his visitors to go, though they always would eventually, and he never wanted Hermione to leave him, though she had to. She had a life. She had a family. She had the fond promise of a comfortable death awaiting her in her future when the time was right.

Harry had struggled to push and push. He'd tried to do what was right. But, just as he'd been told so long ago, the choice was so often between what was right and what was easy.

"I don't… I don't want to be alone anymore," he sobbed.

Peggy was a warm comfort in Harry's lap, but nothing had ever felt so perfectly warm, so comforting, so supportive as Draco's arms as they drew around him. His embrace was different to Hermione's hugs; Harry really felt it, and he felt the promise it contained. It was an awkward hold, as much because of their crouching as its unfamiliarity, but Harry didn't ever want it to stop.

"Yeah," Draco murmured in his ear. "I know. So let me stay, you idiot." Then he all but pressed Harry's face into his shoulder as he dropped his chin onto Harry's crown. He didn't complain once, even though Harry knew he was all but drenching him in unstoppable tears.

How long they slumped in the hallway of the bottom floor of Grimmauld Place, Harry didn't know. He didn't really care. But eventually, he blinked open puffy eyes and, struggling to lift his stuffy, sodden head, peered into the empty darkness to where his parents had been.

They were gone. Somehow, Harry had known they would be. And somehow, even though he hadn't seen them leave, hadn't seen them fade away, he knew too that they wouldn't come back. The realisation hurt like a wound reopened, but that Draco didn't loosen his hold for a second helped to hold Harry together when the seams split and he threatened to fall apart.

For once, Harry let himself fall, and Draco, perhaps the least likely person in the world, was there to catch him.

* * *

For the first time since Draco's return in the new year, Harry slept in his room. In his bed, even, and it was so familiar, so comfortable despite the months it had been since he'd last done so, that Harry didn't think he'd ever feel the urge to move again.

The room was swathed in darkness as night fell, but Harry didn't mind. The bed was warm, Draco lying alongside him, close enough that Harry could feel his breath on his cheek, and Peggy stretched along his back like a supporting wall. It was safe. Protected, even, and for the first time, Harry thought he might have been truly comfortable in Grimmauld Place.

Draco was asleep, he thought, and that was fine. Peggy had likely fallen into a doze too. Harry didn't mind being the only one awake. He didn't mind because, unlike with his visitors, when he closed his eyes they wouldn't both blink out of existence. It was a reassurance that Harry hadn't had in years.

Still, he didn't sleep. He didn't think he could. His thoughts were a mess, and he felt exhausted from his bout of explosive emotion, but he couldn't sleep. So he murmured those thoughts into deaf ears.

"Thank you."

Draco didn't reply.

"It's selfish of me to keep you here, but thank you."

The house groaned slightly, sighing as it settled into its foundations. The swathing darkness of night did little to muffle it, and only the distant sounds of traffic permeated the otherwise muffling silence.

"I don't know what this will mean - if the Death magic will get you or not, or how long you'll stay - but just for a little while…"

Harry closed his eyes, though he didn't know if he could even sleep. Who would have thought that the presence of two bodies on either side of him could ever mean so much? That he would have Draco Malfoy, someone who was a friend and possibly something different entirely, and Peggy, an undead puppy that clung to him like a shadow, to support him?

"I think you make them go away," Harry whispered, his fingers curling into the pillow under his head. "Just like Fred said, I think… I think you help to make them go away and leave me. And that –"

"That's good."

Harry blinked his eyes open, but he couldn't see Draco's face through the darkness. His words were a barely audible murmur themselves, half asleep and detached, but Harry replied nonetheless.

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, maybe it is."

Harry didn't know how long it would last. He still didn't know if he could let himself have this, didn't know if he was allowed to, if it was right or fair. But just for now…

Just for now, he let his objections die. When Harry fell to sleep, actually slipped into a the comfortable embrace of oblivion, he wasn't awakened by the cold hand of a visitor requesting his help. Maybe it was simply because he wasn't needed that day.

Or maybe the warmth of two real bodies helped to waylay them a little. Just for once, Harry didn't think that was necessarily a bad thing.

* * *

A/N: Keep an eye out for the next and final chapter! I should be posting within the next day or so.


	19. Chapter 19 - Nineteen Years Later

**Epilogue: Nineteen-Years-Later**

Draco often woke in the middle of the night. He'd never slept particularly well, not even when he was a child and before his depression had fully manifested to drive him into the kind of waking sleep of mindless listlessness, but now was different.

But not worse. Not really. Draco found he didn't need to sleep quite so much anymore.

Squinting into the darkness of early morning, only the barest hint of predawn peeking through the half-drawn curtains, Draco reached a hand absently, instinctively, towards the blankets at his side. He'd known they would be empty, known they would be cold, but it was still natural to reach.

Harry was always cold. He never left a spread of warmth behind him. And when he woke to a visitor, Draco always woke as well.

If Draco strained hard enough, he thought he could feel it. Once upon a time, such a thing would have been impossible, but now… Now he thought he could feel it. It was a chill on the edges of his awareness that wasn't driven away by the summer warmth that clogged the room, and breathed a stagnant wind that somehow didn't feel bad but was jarring nonetheless.

Once, Draco wouldn't have been able to feel the deathly presence of a visitor. That had changed in the two decades he'd been living with Harry.

Muffling a sleepy groan, Draco rolled onto his side and fumbled for the nightstand. His sleep-numb fingers found his wand and, with a silent flick, he cast a _Lumos_ and illuminated his room.

The white walls, bathed in more brightness than even a normal house to contrast what had once been a bleakly grey, sprung into sharp relief. The silk curtains, an aesthetic choice the likes that Draco's mother would have approved of, blended into those walls in a silvery fabric that greedily drunk the magical light. Propping himself up onto his elbows, Draco blinked away from the stout forms of the pair of wardrobes across the room, scrubbed at his eyes as his gaze grazed up the bed, and paused briefly upon where Peggy lay at the very end.

She took up a good third of the bed. The Labrador in her mutt genes – the only breed that Draco had ever bothered to recognise – had built her into a giant of a dog years before. Sensing Draco's attention, she turned her head slightly where they rested on her front pays, thumped her tail just once, and returned to staring at where Harry perched on the edge of the bed just beside her.

Draco straightened to sitting as the last vestiges of sleep dribbled from him. Sometimes it never left him. Sometimes Draco still struggled to force himself to face the day, and those days he, Harry, and Peggy would often spend most of their hours curled in bed and largely silent.

But not that day. That morning, before it was even truly morning, Draco shrugged aside his sleep, drawn by the phantom and barely perceivable hint of Death magic, and crawled his way across the mattress to Harry's side.

"Where, though?" Harry murmured, so quietly that it couldn't have been his voice that had woken Draco. "I need a location."

Nothing replied. No sound, no change in the Death magic that Draco could feel like the lightest brush of fingers across his skin. But Harry shook his head slightly as though he'd heard one and continued. "That's too vague. You'll have to do better than that. Come on, I know you can."

Crossing his legs, Draco dropped an elbow onto his knee and his chin into his hand, watching Harry silently. The _Lumos_ charm illuminated him as brightly as the walls, though Harry didn't seem to notice. His thin face was trained upon the empty space before him, his gaze fixed and attentive, and one hand was extended before him, seeming to clasp at the fingers of someone who wasn't there.

Or someone who didn't appear to be there. How anyone could disbelieve that Harry truly saw visitors of the non-living variety, Draco didn't know. He couldn't understand how Hermione still sometimes seemed to question the validity of what Harry did and who he was, chewing over her old, old suspicions that the loss of his magic had somehow broken something in him.

Draco knew otherwise. He knew because he'd sat beside Harry too many times when a visitor arrived, and he knew it wasn't in Harry's head. He could feel the magic, if only so slightly that it was barely perceivable. He knew because almost every visitor that sought Harry out, all but begging for his help, Draco assisted him with.

That was it. That was all of it, all of who he and Harry had become. Once, Draco wouldn't have considered such an eventuality possible to say nothing of desirable, but now…

Nineteen years and Draco hadn't reconsidered his decision a single time.

He watched as Harry shook his head once more, barely hearing his murmured, "I know, but where? You've got to give me a range." He stared at the familiar youthfulness of Harry's face, his unlined forehead while those of their old schoolmates had begun to fade with age, the youth that still filled his cheeks despite their thinness, his boyish frame that had never quite grown past the moment he'd defeated the Dark Lord Voldemort. It struck Draco sometimes, just as it did when he turned to Peggy and saw her as the barely adult dog that she'd been for nearly twenty years. It struck him too when he looked in the mirror and saw his own face, unchanged from how it had been for years.

Death magic left its mark, just as Harry had suspected long ago. Draco had barely aged a day – and yet he couldn't find he regretted that, either. Not even when his father grew old enough to appear more like his grandfather.

Draco was drawn from his thoughts, from his staring, when Harry sighed and finally nodded. "Alright," he said. "We'll try." He turned to Draco as though, even without indicating he'd noticed his presence, he'd known he was there. "Did you want to come?"

 _Why do you still always ask that?_ Draco thought to himself, but he didn't speak the words. He'd long ago stopped bothering to question them, though time and again Harry asked. "Of course." His eyes flickered to the empty floor alongside them. "Who is it?"

Harry turned towards the visitor that Draco couldn't see and pursed his lips slightly. "Her name is Maisie," he said. "She got abducted from school and killed."

Draco didn't flinch. He couldn't, because he'd heard just as bad before and to flinch would only make the situation worse. Just as knowing the girl's name was somehow worse too; Harry hadn't been able to discern that, once upon a time, but years ago that had also changed. Visitors introduced themselves now, he'd said.

"She isn't screaming?" Draco asked, because he had to make sure. He doubted she was, but he had to check. He didn't like it when Harry fought to handle things by himself. Listening to a murdered victim scream as they had in the last moments of their life - no one should have to endure that alone.

But Harry shook his head. Draco wasn't surprised. Maybe it was because Harry was more composed, or had more of a handle on his Death magic, but the murdered visitors didn't seem to arrive and wail in terror and horror anymore. He nodded and drew his gaze back to the empty patch of floor. "What does she want?"

Harry didn't respond immediately, staring at the girl who stood invisibly before him. Draco reached a hand to Harry's forehead and gently flicked his fringe aside, retrieving his attention. "Tell me," he said quietly.

Catching his bottom lip between his lips, Harry glanced back towards Draco. "She dropped her phone somewhere along the way," he said. "She wants me to get it. She says she thinks she managed to get a picture or two on it."

 _Smart girl,_ Draco thought but didn't say. Smart she may have been, but her efforts were ultimately futile. "And she doesn't know where?"

Harry nodded. "I asked her," he said, almost defensively, and Draco raised a placating hand.

"I know," he said. "I heard."

Harry nodded slightly, obligingly. Once, he'd never asked. He'd never demanded his visitors give him more than they thought they could, even if it would help them achieve what they wanted. Draco was heartily relieved when Harry had managed to overcome that hurdle. It made their job far easier.

Slinging his legs over the side of the bed, Draco slid to the edge. "Shall we go and get this sorted, then?" he asked. "We need to be back for breakfast."

"It's not the end of world if we're not back in time," Harry said, though he too rose to his feet. "Fixing this is important."

"Yes," Draco said, reaching for his shoes as he silently brightened his _Lumos_ charm a little more. "But it would be pleasant for you if you were home before Hermione and Ron brought the kids over."

"They'll understand," Harry murmured, though Draco knew he was right.

They didn't speak after that. They didn't need to. Draco dressed swiftly and efficiently, and Harry just as much, though his outstretched hand bespoke the clinging hold of his visitor following him as he rifled through the right wardrobe and extracted a pair of his own shoes.

Peggy clambered down from the bed with a huff, trotting to the door and nudged it open. Without comment from any of them, she led the way on their route. It was strange, but Peggy seemed to have developed her own sort of response to Death magic too; without being told, she always seemed to know where to lead them.

Just like that, just as they always did, Draco accompanied Harry out of the room, out of Grimmauld Place, and into the dark morning with their nineteen-year-old puppy. It was normal. Natural. Had become habit by then.

And, walking through the dark streets, leaving Grimmauld Place behind them and led by the invisible presence of a murdered girl, Draco shared a glance with Harry that held more words than he could ever manage to say. It might be horrible, might be terrifying, to think that he would be bereft of death as Harry had feared years before…

But Draco wouldn't want it any other way. Harry didn't want to be alone, and neither, for that matter, did Draco. Even if not necessarily happy, Draco was as content as he could ever be.

* * *

A/N: Well, um... the end? I guess? Or something of the sort.  
I hope you enjoyed the story. It was a bit of a tricky one to write, and just as hard to post, but I'm so glad I managed it. If nothing else, the wonderful reviews I've received pertaining to this story - it's been incredible.  
Thank you so much to everyone who's taken the time to read, to review, and to keep up with this story throughout. I hope you liked it, or at least got a little something out of it. What else can we ask for, really?


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